Amazon is planning to open cashierless Amazon Go supermarkets and pop-up stores, possibly as soon as the first quarter of 2020, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Nov. 20).
Amazon Go technology is being tested in a 10,400-square-foot space in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, a source told Bloomberg.
The eCommerce giant launched the first Go convenience store in Seattle in 2017 and now has 21 U.S. locations. The expansion efforts could make Amazon a serious player in the $900 billion U.S. grocery industry. The company already operates the Whole Foods Market chain.
An Amazon Go grocery store initiative has been underway since 2012, and some $1 billion in salaries have gone to people working on the project, the source said.
The technology for Go had been comprised of complicated cameras and software that automatically charged shoppers as they exited the store with merchandise. The Go team is now part of Physical Retail Technologies, a new entity that worked for the past two years on improving the efficiency and profitability of the tech so other retailers would want in, the source told Bloomberg.
The latest hardware revisions have improved cameras and software and fewer backroom servers, which has reduced the overhead of setting up a new store, the source said.
The Amazon Go concept was originally launched with big supermarkets in mind but was dropped in favor of smaller convenience stores featuring grab-and-go staples. Now the technology is planned to accommodate 30,000-square-foot stores.
The pop-up kiosks are planned as miniature versions of the current Amazon Go stores and could be part of malls and sports stadiums, the source told Bloomberg.
“The big question isn’t will the tech work — Amazon will make it work,” said Forrester Research’s Brendan Witcher.
Amazon opened a cashierless store in May in New York City’s Brookfield Place office complex. A second location followed in June in Midtown Manhattan. The first Amazon Go opened last January at the online retailer’s Seattle headquarters.
The Justice Department reportedly told financial regulators that it didn’t have sufficient evidence to block the proposed merger between Capital One and Discover.
This decision would allow the two banking regulators that must approve the deal — the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — to approve the transaction, Bloomberg reported Thursday (April 3).
The Justice Department told the regulators of its decision in a confidential memo, the report said, citing unnamed sources.
The Justice Department did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
Staff at the Justice Department were divided about whether the merger should be challenged, and the new antitrust division chief, Gail Slater, made the decision that there was not enough evidence to do so, according to the report.
Earlier, under the Biden administration, antitrust officials at the Justice Department had said they had some concerns that the deal could harm competition, per the report.
Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department looked at not only the competitive factors of the deal, which is what it normally focuses on in bank mergers, but also how the deal might affect different customer segments, fees, interest rates, bank locations, product variety, network effects, interoperability and customer service, the report said.
Capital One announced its planned acquisition of Discover in February 2024, saying the deal would create a global payments platform with 70 million merchant acceptance points in more than 200 countries and territories.
“Our acquisition of Discover is a singular opportunity to bring together two very successful companies with complementary capabilities and franchises, and to build a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” Richard Fairbank, founder, chairman and CEO of Capital One, said at the time in a press release.
The deal took a step toward completion in December when it received approval from the Office of the Delaware State Bank Commissioner.
It took another step forward in February, when the two companies said that more than 99% of their shareholders had voted to approve the merger. When announcing the votes, Capital One said it expected the transaction to close early this year, subject to approval by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
