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Amazon is moving its technology teams for its physical stores from the consumer side to the Amazon Web Services cloud side, aiming to further expand the company’s in-store technologies at other retailers.
Dilip Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of physical retail and technology, will move to AWS along with heads and teams from Just Walk Out cashier-less checkout technology, Amazon Dash Cart and Amazon One Palm Recognition and Payment Services. Other technologies according to internal email.
News site Insider first reported the changes earlier today, and GeekWire independently confirmed them.
Amazon is looking to license these retail technologies to others after launching them in the company’s stores, including Amazon Go convenience and grocery stores.
AWS, according to division director Adam Selipski, is the tech giant’s primary way to provide technology to other companies. The goal is to “grow our checkout technology, products and services beyond our stores,” Amazon’s senior vice president of physical stores, Tony Hoggett, wrote in an email.
Just Walk Out, a popular in-store technology, records shoppers as they enter the store, uses cameras and sensors to detect when they pick up items, allowing the system to pay after they leave the store without having to checkout. , using pre-stored payment information.
Earlier this month, Amazon said in a post on the AWS for Industries blog that Just Walk Out is available in more than 50 Amazon stores, in addition to more than a dozen third-party stores.
“These technologies have helped differentiate our physical store offerings, and the success of these products and services is increasing demand. [third-party] customers,” Hoggett wrote. “This is an ongoing priority in our first-party stores, and our teams will continue to work closely together.”
Hoggett is part of a broader set of changes at Amazon’s physical stores division following last year’s move from Tesco, the British supermarket chain, to the Seattle-based company.
Earlier this year, Amazon said it would close all of its Amazon 4-Star, bookstore and pop-up stores to focus more on Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market and Amazon Go grocery and convenience stores, and the new Amazon Style clothing stores. In addition to basic technologies like Amazon One and Just Walk Out.
In an interview with GeekWire at Amazon’s MARS conference in June, Kumar said the company has gained new insights from third-party implementations of in-store technologies, such as the need for shoppers to check-in and check-out using a store. Credit card, not just an app, but Amazon accepts it, too.
At the same time, Kumar said, Amazon remains committed to physical stores as the first part of its business. He rejected the idea that the company’s store technologies could be just a justification for licensing others.
“When we get into a particular business, we can try a lot of different things, but the idea is that if customers like it, if we see the right feedback … and if we see the right types of behavior, we’ll double down and build more,” he said at the time.
Amazon’s physical stores were created in recognition that the “majority” of sales occur in physical stores in certain categories, including grocery and apparel, Kumar said.
Amazon said it is rolling out the Amazon One palm recognition system to more than 65 Whole Foods stores in California after launching last week in Seattle, Austin and some Whole Foods locations in New York and L.A.
Amazon ONe has faced concerns from some users and groups despite assurances from Amazon on privacy and options to use other verification methods. One of Amazon’s early partners, Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, canceled plans to use the palm-recognition and payment system at the popular music venue.
Other Amazon physical retail executives moving to AWS, according to the memo, are Sanjay Dash, vice president of technology for physical stores; Jennifer Maule, CEO of Just Walk Out Technology; Barry Johnson, Vice President, Physical Stores Technology, Gerard Medioni, Other Vice President.
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