Amazon Just Had Grocery For Brunch!!

After taking over bookstores, electronic shops, retail chains, and then coming up with Amazon Fresh and Amazon prime, it is now marching towards revolutionizing grocery sector but, with a tale of a twist.

A company that moved mountains for building its online retail presence, making brick and mortar store suffer miserably, is now branching out and moving beyond the virtual presence.

The issue with grocery sector is, people, do need to feel and see the product themselves. Online grocery shopping equates to online equates to 1% of total e-commerce revenues and will remain low (5% by 2021).

As Russell Peters says: Take it and Go

According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is opening a grocery store selling mostly perishable items, milk, meat etc.

Going by the video that Amazon published customer needs to sign in Amazon app and scan the displayed a barcode or QR code prior to entering the store. This process introduces shopper to store and vis a viz.

Comprising of AI, Video Cameras, Sensors and deep machine learning store can identify in no time if the items are picked from shelves, and immediately adds to the cart. Also if you put the product back, it will remove the same from your cart.

So to sum it up it’s like Russel Peter famous Asian saying “Take it and Go”. No hassle of checkout and long queues.

From Piggly Wiggly to Amazon Go: We have come a long way

I grinned a little reading this cheeky tagline “No lines. No checkout. No, seriously.” It is too good to be true, given the rapid growth of omnichannel shopping

A company with more than three decades of experience in pioneering innovations and so customer centric, it does give me an impression of admitting that this idea may not go well as expected and face major failures.

However, its Amazon we are talking here. We have seen how IBM talked about it a decade ago, but could never come up with such flawless technology, how Walmart did come up with something close to this. SO how can Amazon launch it successfully?

Well, One thing that can likely happen is Amazon may play utterly safe and go for low SKU count in those big geographies to cater to those impulsive, fascinated millennial buyers and put aside the larger formats for Click and Collect grocery model.

I won’t deny the fact that I love Amazon for the factory of weird and crazier innovation it makes. But my problem is it offers an efficient and operational saving in retail environments where there is lesser need of personalized suggestion or service, like grocery stores.

Amazon is creating a Data Hive

It is difficult to predict at this moment if there will be human involved in the supply chain at all, however, there ought to be some security personnel or an assistant to help where you are stuck.

But, keeping everything aside, what I see Amazon doing here is this

It is actually preparing a strong armor, an AI by gathering all sorts of customer data. With this, Amazon can broader its supply chain and ultimately offer the seamless shopping experience to consumers.

SO what is it offering and who is benefiting?

It surely is Consumers!! Look, Amazon, has a habit of coming up with the best deals during festive seasons and it has made no exception this time. Amazon Go is, for now, a pandora box, all you and I can do is assume.

But you can’t deny the fact that Amazon identifies the pain area and hits bull’s eye each time, just like it did with books. Checkouts, long queues have always been a headache for 75% of people who buy groceries from brick and mortar store, and it swiftly eliminated it from the entire shopping process, making it a cakewalk for consumers.

Grab it and Go, just like it says.

Amazon is bringing paradigm shift to Retail sector

The U.S. grocery business is expanding.

Americans are spending big bucks to stay well-fed. In 2014, supermarket sales in the U.S. topped $638 billion. Sixty-five percent of that is spent at traditional grocery stores alone.

Woah!! The Food Marketing Institute reported that about 50 percent of that spend is on perishables — stuff like meat (13 percent of that 50 percent), produce (11 percent of that 50 percent) and dairy (8 percent of that 50 percent).

Now, while the traditional grocery fights it out as to who gets instated into grocer’s discount hall of fame, Amazon is busy reinventing smaller store model where its all about convenience and customer supremacy.

Amazon may not take a long flight, but it doesn’t have to, to establish itself like Kroger, and that’s exactly should be a retailer’s concern. Amazon already is the

Amazon already is the largest retailer with a market cap with its 300 million customer base by capturing a very small percentage of overall retail sales but big shares in certain categories — by doing exactly that. It has changed how customer buy online and has the power to change how customer buys food as well

It has changed how customer buy online and has the power to change how customer buys food as well

Let’s see like this, Amazon is mainly selling perishable food, for now, so what it actually is doing is shifting the operational feature of a grocery store, beginning with perishable commodities that are bought often by consumers. Almost 50 percent of grocery is spent on these products. And so, rather than changing the consumer behavior of buying these perishable items, Amazon has connected them better by offering a much needed physical store experience.

Almost 50 percent of grocery is spent on these products. And so, rather than changing the consumer behavior of buying these perishable items, Amazon has connected them better by offering a much needed physical store experience.

Given the smaller store footprint and a hassle free checkout system, it is likely to be preferred by consumers like me who hates to wander in store as huge as a park to get what i want. Also, you are likely to see more people popping up as it also offers prepared food, and of course that is the next best thing most of us spend on.

Also, you are likely to see more people popping up as it also offers prepared food, and of course that is the next best thing most of us spend on.

Final thoughts

Amazon’s shift to grocery takes me back to where it all started- books. Bezos found the same potential market in books back then, the same he looks forward to now.

The books are actually something anyone could find easily online and buy, and so is the food. Most of us eat three times a day (at least I do). For me buying meat isn’t much different than buying a book. I know the what I want from whom, I just need a personal touch to it.