Amazon Fumbles Frictionless Checkout
Serve and Wing partner, Caper Carts get upgrades, Choice Market bankrupt
Is Instacart kicking Amazon’s butt? It sure looks that way, at least when it comes to frictionless checkout, as Caper Carts leapfrog past Just Walk Out. Read on for all the details, plus big new partnerships involving Wing, Serve, Uber and more.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Still Awaiting Perfect Grocer
It’s been a tough year for Just Walk Out, the frictionless checkout technology developed by Amazon. Back in spring, the company announced it was going to replace the grab-and-go tracking system deployed to many of its full-scale Amazon Fresh markets with its smart shopping cart alternative. The company also pulled the tech out of the two Whole Foods stores where it’d been deployed: one in Los Angeles and the other in Washington, D.C. Undeterred, the company continued to deploy the tech to smaller locales like airport retailers and in-stadium snack shops.
Amazon is now in the midst of rolling out a new small-format grocery store, Whole Foods Daily Shops, but apparently that too is not a good fit for Just Walk Out. Despite recent accuracy upgrades, Christina Minardi, executive vice president of growth and development for Whole Foods and Amazon, said the tech is “very restricted,” causing any changes to in-store layouts to require weeks of tech work. With the world of JWO getting narrower and narrower, the program now appears to be in turmoil, as the division just lost Jon Jenkins, former Vice President of Just Walk Out, to micromobility provider Lime.
Choice Market Chooses Bankruptcy
Frictionless checkout isn’t just an Amazon problem, however. Denver-based Choice Market, operator of a network of automated mini-marts, is also throwing in the towel. While the company initially filed for reorganization back in May, the company was unable to secure rescue financing.
Instacart Gamifies Caper Carts
While camera-based checkout systems are struggling, smart shopping carts continue to show promise. Instacart just rolled out three new updates to its Caper Cart system: gamified quests, location-based coupons, and aisle-aware advertising formats. These new tools build shopper engagement, and have proven a hit with customers like Schnuck Markets, Wakefern Food Corp and PepsiCo. Caper Carts have been on a roll as of late, expanding to grocers like Aldi South, Price Chopper, McKeever’s, and ShopRite.
Robotaxis Rock On
The past few days have seen a slew of robotaxi news; starting with Avride bringing both its autonomous passenger vehicles and its delivery robots to Uber’s network. Meanwhile, Waymo welcomed Hyundai as a new vehicle supplier, as it aims to upfit Ioniq 5 SUVs by late next year. On the componentry side of things, Sonair is building a new visioning system that uses ultrasound, instead of Lidar, to do its 3D mapping. Turning to heavy duty AVs, Gatik is looking to expand its operations in Texas, while Germany’s Fernride is courting military contracts. And last but not least, Tesla is set to unveil key details on its robotaxi program this Thursday.
Serve and Wing Launch Pilot Partnership
Now here’s a partnership that looks to move both heaven and earth… Alphabet’s drone delivery subsidiary Wing is teaming up with delivery bot purveyor Serve Robotics. Under the pilot, restaurateurs will load their orders into a Serve robot, which will then wheel it to a Wing AutoLoader, before being flown to a hungry end customer. The program is meant to take place in Dallas, which has proven to be a real hotspot for drone delivery, and is also a market that Serve has repeatedly expressed interest in expanding to. The pilot does not yet have a launch date, and the teaser video was evidently filmed in Wing’s Palo Alto, CA office parking lot.
California Fast-Food Minimum Wage Increase Had Insignificant Impact
Back in April, California raised the minimum wage at most fast food restaurants to $20 per hour. While critics complained it was decimating the industry, a new study from UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment found the impacts to be minimal. Researchers found that there was no changes to statewide employment levels in the affected industry, while average prices only rose 3.7%.
In Other News
Simbe Robotics launches in Turkiye with Carrefour Group. Walmart adds automation to two regional distribution centers. Helm.ai turns to generative AI to produce AV training data. Nvidia says vision-language models can help robots remember. Quicktron raises $100M+. OpenAI closes on $6.6 billion in new venture funding, adds on $4 billion credit facility for good measure.
