Here's How Amazon Go Can Be The Next Growth Driver For Amazon

Taking the offline grocery shopping experience to the next level, Amazon recently introduced "Amazon Go," a retail store format which allows shoppers to pick the items they want and leave without any checkout procedure. The "just walk out" technology being used for these stores is based on the same technology used in self-driving cars. This format will provide some of the convenience of e-commerce to consumers who prefer to pick out grocery items personally, which would give Amazon a substantial competitive edge over other players such as Wal-Mart and Target. Amazon's market share in the grocery segment is only around 1% currently, while groceries account for nearly 20% of consumer spending in the U.S. According to the Food Marketing Institute, the average U.S. consumer spends nearly $107 per week on grocery shopping, or around $5,500 per year, higher than the annual spend of an average Amazon Prime customer. The company has opened the first Amazon Go store in beta to employees, and will open it to the public in 2017.