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Amazon says it'll roll out a new grocery store format next year
Amazon is wading further into the physical retail world as it confirmed plans to open a different type of grocery store in 2020. Reports earlier this year suggested Amazon was working on a low-cost grocery format as an alternative to Whole Foods and Amazon Go.
Amazon-owned Whole Foods cuts medical benefits for part-time workers
Not all is well with Whole Foods in the Amazon era. The grocery chain has confirmed to Business Insider that it's cutting medical benefits for part-time staff who work a minimum of 20 hours per week. A spokesperson said Whole Foods was dropping the benefits as part of a move to a single part-time work structure that "better meet the needs of our business and create a more equitable and efficient scheduling model." The change takes effect January 1st, 2020, and is expected to affect roughly 1,900 workers, or just short of 2 percent of the total workforce.
Amazon may launch a hand recognition payment system for Whole Foods
Time may come when you can walk out of a Whole Foods store without having to pay cash or to swipe your card -- that is, if you're willing to give the Amazon-owned supermarket chain your biometric data. According to New York Post, Amazon is testing a payment system codenamed "Orville" that scans human hands to ring up purchases. The e-commerce giant is reportedly using its New York employees as guinea pigs by installing the system on a handful of vending machines selling chips, sodas and phone chargers in its offices.
Pay with crypto at Whole Foods, Gamestop and other retailers
It's been difficult to spend cryptocurrencies at retail due to the technical and regulatory headaches associated with it, but that might not be an issue at some stores in the near future. Flexa has launched a payment network and a companion iOS app, Spedn, that should let you spend digital currency at major retailers like Baskin Robbins, Gamestop and Whole Foods. You just bring up a barcode at the register and the merchant scans it in -- if they don't directly accept crypto, the payment network converts your funds into conventional money in real time.
Amazon is shutting down its US pop-up stores
Amazon is re-thinking its physical retail strategy, and will reportedly start another chain of grocery stores later this year alongside Whole Foods. But not all of its concepts will stand the test of time -- the company closing down its 87 retail pop-up stores throughout the US, perhaps because they're too limited in scope for Amazon's ambitions.
Amazon is reportedly planning a new, low-cost grocery chain
Amazon is reportedly planning to open dozens of grocery stores in major US cities, which will be under different branding from its Whole Foods chain. The first location may open in Los Angeles before the end of this year, while it's signed leases for at least two other stores, according to Wall Street Journal sources.
Whole Foods experimenting with Kinect-powered shopping carts that are smarter than you (video)
Here's a little secret Whole Foods doesn't like to advertise: they want, nay, demand, that a rather large percentage of residents near its highfalutin grocery stores have a college degree. Apparently you've gotta be smart to navigate its aisles crowded with over-priced organic wares and exotic condiments. Perhaps, though, the company has realized the error of its ways and wants to move in to new markets. That doesn't mean it trusts you and your high school diploma to decipher all those labels with difficult to pronounce words on them. A new experimental shopping cart is being tested by the market that puts a tablet and a Kinect in the driver's seat -- literally. Because you can't be expected to multi-task, the cart drives itself, monitors your shopping list and can even warn you if you grab the wrong item, thus protecting you from your own inability to avoid aggravating your peanut allergy. Check it out in action after the break.
Microsoft demonstrates Kinect-enabled shopping cart
If you've dreamed of a day when your shopping cart could slowly stalk you, as you peruse the aisles at your local Whole Foods, Microsoft is one step ahead of you. The company recently demonstrated a prototype of a Kinect-enabled shopping cart. Employing a monitor, a motor and a Kinect sensor, the cart can recognize a membership card, pull up a customer's shopping list and scan objects as they are placed in the cart. What's more, the cart will dutifully follow a customer around the store.As demonstrated in the video above, the cart can even identify user preferences -- in this case, warning Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg that he picked up the wrong type of spaghetti (apparently he's going gluten free). Best of all, the cart allows customers to immediately pay for their purchases using a stored account, thus negating the need to stand in the checkout line (unless you want help bagging your groceries ... but you brought your own bags, right?).We're all for a future of hyper-intelligent (and hyper-expensive) shopping carts but, if said future doesn't include checkout lines, how will we keep up with the life and times of Angelina Jolie?
