PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Austin Whole Foods Debuts Amazon’s Palm-Scan Payment Option

Amazon, Walmart Find Urgency In Last Mile

Spending a few dollars in the Jeff Bezos empire just got a little easier for some shoppers in Texas.

Amazon and its brick-and-mortar grocery store unit Whole Foods just converted one of the first stores outside Seattle to the Amazon One palm-scan checkout platform that lets customers activate payments with just palm prints, Kiosk Marketplace and other media outlets reported.

The store is in Austin.

Customers who have signed up to use the service only need to hover their downward-facing hands over scanners to complete a purchase.

“We are always looking for new ways to satisfy and delight our customers and offer convenient options to improve the shopping experience,” Leandro Balbinot, chief technology officer and senior vice president of Whole Foods Market, said in a press release.

“We built Amazon One to offer a quick, reliable, and secure way for people to identify themselves or authorize a transaction while moving seamlessly through their day,” said Thi Luu, director of product management, Amazon physical retail technology, also said in the release.

See also: Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ Tech Comes to Stadiums

Amazon One states on its web page that among the benefits of the scanning technology, which relies on the uniqueness of each human palm, is that transactions are “truly contactless.”

Amazon One’s website lists 40 settings where the service is deployed. They include restaurants and arenas in Seattle; the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado; numerous Amazon Fresh locations; and about a dozen Amazon Go locations, including in New York City.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024