When Tacoma, WA based Foodservice
Solutions® Grocerant
Guru®,
Steven Johnson walked through, shopped, and sampled fresh food from Amazon Go and believes
that there is no doubt that Amazon reached its goal in providing a ‘better-for-you’
retail experience. Why?
Simple the fresh food was fresh and
full flavored and the experience was fast.
The store was well designed so that you could with ease find a fresh
meal, meal component, or fresh snack item.
The incremental benefit was you could buy a loaf of bread, milk, beer,
wine, and or chips if you wanted to stock an urban pantry or have the gang over
to watch a game.
The technology was seamless you did
not notice it unless you were looking up at the ceiling. You could not see the sensors on the shelves
detecting when an item picked up or placed back on the shelf. What was noticeable upon reflection was how
natural it was. No one missed the
cashier, the checkout station, or standing in line. You simply shopped and left.
Amazon Go is
not about replacing some of 3.5 million cashiers
reported in the United States in 2016. The number of people involved in retail in my
opinion could rise as Amazon expands its technology to other locations. Jobs may be in not jeopardy if the technology
used by Amazon Go is saleable and all indications from Amazon’s Gianna Puerini the executive in charge of
Amazon Go and Dilip Kumar, Amazon Go vice president of technology
that is the case.
Amazon Go has created a platform where consumesr
can get fresh food fast, meals and meal components in a complexity free setting
that will empower consumer to buy fresh food more often. It will help evolve from retail work space
from cashiers too skilled cooks, meal assembly workers all while empowering
sustainable local specialty outlets the ilk of bakery’s, butchers, breweries
incremental avenues of distribution.
The store size helped with the speed
of service with only 1,800 square feet.
Without room allocated for cashier’s there was plenty of food, and
beverages choice without choice overload.
This store is about stocking the shelfs with food consumer want. Amazon Go is not about slotting fees while
they did have traditional CPG bread, milk, chips, and beer clearly the
grocerant niche fresh prepared food was the star of the show.
So what did we try? We tried the Alki Bakery Club Sandwich,
Molly’s Tortellini Pasta Salad, and Portland Style Coconut Dream Cake. All were grocerant niche fresh full flavored
portable and portioned for either one or two people. We have at this point
three insights:
1. Just like
using your iPhone (or any smart phone) for the first time you told yourself
this is great. Sure we have all learned
smart phone are not perfect but the fact is we now want them to do more and
more. In the case of Amazon Go we will
want more and more fresh food options and I’m sure they will evolve. Note to Gianna I wanted fresh coffee this
morning.
2. The store size
was just fine, the assortment of food and legacy CPG products exceed my
expectations. However food manufactures
will have to up their game to maintain market share, packaging, freshness, and
flavor appeared stayed.
3. There is no
doubt that this template is working in an urban footprint but clearly
Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Scorecards indicate that the unmet demand from
consumers for fresh fast retail food experiences will drive this technology
into suburbs as sure as autonomous vehicles can’t be stopped.
Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a
Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning
or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®. Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us of
Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869
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