Amazon's First Grocery Store Opens Soon

Amazon's been hinting at entering the physical retail market for quite a while now, discussing plans to open as many as 2,000 stores over the next 10 years. Early next year, the first one, an 1,800-square-foot convenience shop called Amazon Go, will open its doors in Seattle with shelves lined with meal kits, sweets, wraps and other staples. But one major element of a typical supermarket will be missing: checkout lines. Amazon is calling its store's approach "Just Walk Out technology."

Here's how it works: You open the Amazon app on your phone and swipe it at a turnstile on the way in. Using artificial intelligence, the app keeps track of everything you take off the shelf and put in your bag. If you decide you don't want that extra quart of milk and put it back in the refrigerator case, the app will automatically deduct it from your virtual shopping cart.

Amazon is also working on other supermarket models, including one called "click and collect," which allows shoppers to place orders on their phones and drive to a depot to pick up their already-packed groceries. One of these stores could open as soon as the next few weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Finally, a concept that allows customers to shop in a 30,000-40,000-square-foot supermarket but also places orders for certain items for delivery later is also in the works.

Without checkout lines, you'll just have to find another time to catch up on celebrity gossip.