The Amazon Go app is going away.
In another move to streamline its shopping services and family of mobile apps, Amazon announced Friday that the app used to enter its high-tech convenience grocery stores will no longer be needed. Customers can use the main Amazon app for all online and physical-store shopping.
“To make Just Walk Out Shopping even more convenient at Amazon Go, customers can now simply use the Amazon Shopping app to enter Amazon Go stores,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire. “We will retire the Amazon Go app by the end of this year.”
“Just Walk Out” refers to the technology that makes Go actually go. Shoppers check into the stores by scanning a unique QR code on their smartphone. Overhead cameras work with weight sensors in the shelves to precisely track which items those shoppers pick up and take with them. When they leave, they do so without visiting a checkout line. Amazon Go’s systems automatically debit their accounts for the items they take, sending the receipt to the app.
In the main Amazon app, the company has built an “in-store code” feature (listed in the horizontal menu on the app home page) that now works in any of Amazon’s brick-and-mortar stores: Go, Fresh, Books, 4-star and Pop-Up. At Whole Foods, which Amazon owns, the QR code can be scanned for Prime savings and for payment at select stores. Shoppers can also use Amazon One, the company’s palm-reading biometric ID app at select locations.
The first Amazon Go opened on 7th Avenue in Seattle in January 2018. There are now 29 of the stores and the cashierless technology is used at select Amazon Fresh full-size grocery stores and is coming to Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena next month.
In May, Amazon announced that it was ending its Prime Now speedy delivery as a standalone service and integrating it into the main Amazon website and app.
