How Amazon’s Big Bet on ‘Just Walk Out’ Stumbled

Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” system was supposed to be the futuristic centerpiece of its push into physical retail. But as Amazon pulls back from opening its own physical stores, the team behind the technology has struggled to control costs and pitch the system to other big retailers.

A customer taps into an Amazon Go store in Whittier, Calif on September 12, 2022. Photo by Orange County Register via Getty.

In 2020, Amazon went on a blitz offering up the grab-and-go cashierless technology behind its Amazon Go convenience stores to large retailers around the world.

That included offering up the Just Walk Out technology to Woolworths, the largest retailer by revenue in Australia, according to a person with knowledge of the talks. And executives at department store chain Kohl’s weighed the pros and cons of installing Just Walk Out, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. But few deals with big retail chains have materialized in the years since, and Amazon has yet to deploy the tech in a large store that it doesn’t own itself.