Amazon's first grocery store without a checkout line opening to public

Amazon set to open its grocery store without a checkout line to the public.

SEATTLE  – After a year of testing with its own employees, Amazon plans to open its store that lets you browse, grab and walk out — skipping the checkout line, but not the bill — to the public Monday.

The convenience store and its proprietary technology, made up of hundreds of cameras and sensors and requiring a new Amazon app, dangled the promise of solving a bedrock complaint for shoppers — long checkout lines — when it was unveiled just over a year ago. The high-tech approach, crafted by the company that's most visibly changed how Americans shop in recent years, suggested grocery shopping was on the cusp of its biggest breakthrough since bar codes.

The change spurred by Amazon Go may be more gradual than that. The technology behind it, called Just Walk Out, is proprietary and Amazon is expected to keep its details secret while it tests it on a small but more varied customer set than the Amazon employees who've been using it. It was originally scheduled to open to the public in early 2017 but was delayed in part due to the complexity of the technology. 

If it succeeds, it stands to live up to those early expectations of a revolution in grocery shopping. The ability to walk into a store, grab what you want and simply walk out is remarkably freeing, though it can leave a slight nagging feeling that you've just shoplifted — until you check the app to make sure you've been charged. 

"This is the definition of disruption. This is Netflix replacing Blockbuster, this is Uber replacing taxis," said Brendan Witcher, principal analyst with Forrester Research, who shopped in the store last week.

Critics note the disruption could also end up meaning fewer jobs as lines of checkout clerks give way to smart stores that do their own checking out. 

The technology comes as huge changes are already rocking the grocery business, including Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods, plus rising numbers of customers who want to order online and have their groceries delivered and shifting tastes that have pushed stores to stock more organic and locally-grown items.

But in the 100 years since the first modern supermarket was opened, no one has ever solved the problem of long lines at checkout.