Amazon Go開張將推動零售業(yè)“科技大戰(zhàn)”

Five years ago Amazon started working on a secret project: how to eliminate the checkout line in stores. Amazon executives reasoned that most other aspects of physical shopping had been pretty much perfected, except for one thing — nobody likes waiting in line.

5年前，亞馬遜(Amazon)開始研究一個秘密項目：如何消除商店里的結(jié)賬排隊現(xiàn)象。亞馬遜高管們認為，實體店購物已經(jīng)相當完美了，除了一件事以外——沒有人喜歡排隊等待。

The result of that project is Amazon Go, a futuristic convenience store in which shoppers are tracked by hundreds of cameras on the ceiling and a computer algorithm that analyses their every gesture, and then tallies up their receipt when they exit. Amazon calls this “just walk out” shopping, because there is no checkout counter and no checkout line, just a few turnstiles like those on the underground.

該項目的成果是Amazon Go，這是一家有著未來主義風格的便利店，天花板上有數(shù)百臺攝像機跟蹤購物者，計算機算法則分析他們的每一個動作，并在他們離開時結(jié)賬。亞馬遜稱之為“拿完就走”(just walk out)式購物，因為沒有收銀臺，不用排隊結(jié)賬，只有幾個就像地鐵里那樣的閘機。

The store, which has been in testing since December 2016 and opens to the public on Monday, represents Amazon’s most provocative effort yet to reshape the future of brick-and-mortar retail.

這家店從2016年12月開始試運營，并在本周一面向公眾開業(yè)，它代表著亞馬遜迄今最為激進的重塑實體零售未來的努力。

Located in a ground-floor retail spot at the centre of Amazon’s campus in Seattle, the shop has posters in its windows advertising the “just walk out” shopping experience. To underscore the point, each receipt comes with a “trip timer” so shoppers see exactly how many seconds it took to grab their goods. The items for sale are similar to what might be found in a deli or a corner store, with an in-store kitchen that prepares fresh sandwiches and salads.

該店位于西雅圖亞馬遜園區(qū)中心的一個位于一層的零售點，櫥窗里張貼著宣傳“拿完就走”購物體驗的海報。為了強調(diào)這一點，每張收據(jù)都帶有一個“行程計時器”，購物者可以準確地看到他們買走商品所用的秒數(shù)。該店出售的商品與熟食店或者街頭小店類似，店內(nèi)還有制作新鮮三明治和沙拉的廚房。

Although it was founded as an online-only bookstore, Amazon’s aggressive push into physical retail has surprised — and alarmed — many of its retail competitors. The company now operates 13 brick-and-mortar bookstores, several grocery pick-up points and, since its $13.7bn acquisition last year, hundreds of Whole Foods stores across the US.

雖然亞馬遜成立時只是家在線書店，但其積極進軍實體零售業(yè)讓許多零售競爭對手感到意外和緊張。該公司現(xiàn)在經(jīng)營著13家實體書店和幾個雜貨提取點，去年以137億美元收購全食(Whole Foods)后，還經(jīng)營著美國各地數(shù)百家全食門店。

However the complexity of the Amazon Go store’s design means that it is more of an experimental concept at the moment, rather than a mature technology that can be easily and cheaply replicated. The store was initially supposed to open to the public in the spring of 2017 but was delayed until this month amid reports it was not quite working as expected.

然而，Amazon Go設(shè)計復雜，這意味著它目前更多是一個實驗性的概念，而不是一種可以輕松而低成本復制的成熟技術(shù)。該店最初本來定于在2017年春季向公眾開放，但據(jù)媒體報道稱，由于進展不像預期那樣順利，所以一直延遲到本月。

Dilip Kumar, who oversees the technology behind the Amazon Go store, explains that the store uses computer vision — the ceiling is dotted with hundred of video cameras — to determine what shoppers are picking out.

Amazon Go的技術(shù)負責人迪利普•庫馬爾(Dilip Kumar)解釋稱，店鋪使用計算機視覺——安裝在天花板上的數(shù)百臺攝像機——來確定購物者正在挑選什么。

“Five years ago when we started this, we said: can we push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning to create this effortless experience for customers to come in, take what they want, and leave?” he says.

他說：“當我們在5年前啟動該項研究的時候，我們說：我們可以用計算機視覺和機器學習為客戶實現(xiàn)這種進來拿上想要的東西走人的輕松體驗嗎?”

Mr Kumar points to the cameras that nearly blanket the ceiling, and explains that the computer algorithm uses these to determine which customer is taking which products. There are also weight sensors on the store shelves, but these are less useful because different items can have the same weight, such as different flavours of yoghurt.

庫馬爾指著幾乎遍布天花板的攝像機解釋說，計算機算法使用這些攝像機來確定哪個客戶正在拿哪些產(chǎn)品。商店貨架上還有重量傳感器，但這些重量傳感器用處不大，因為不同物品可以有相同的重量，例如不同風味的酸奶。

“The holy grail is video understanding,” he says. “To be able to understand and interpret and know exactly what is happening. Doing this at scale and getting transaction-level accuracy is what makes this challenging.”

他說：“視頻理解是關(guān)鍵。要能夠理解和解釋并準確地知道發(fā)生了什么。這種技術(shù)的挑戰(zhàn)在于大規(guī)模應(yīng)用和達到交易級精度。”

He explains that one of the most difficult things for the algorithm to master is when the store gets crowded. “It is much more convoluted when you have 50 people picking up multiple items or browsing,” he says. “They are occluded, they occlude each other, items are getting occluded, and the items are small.”

他解釋說，算法要應(yīng)付的最困難的情況之一是在商店變得擁擠的時候。他說：“當有50個人拿起多件物品或瀏覽的時候，事情就會復雜很多。他們被遮擋、互相遮擋、物品被擋住，還有物品很小。”

Over the past year, the tech team has been improving the algorithm so that it is trained to handle these scenarios, including when customers might partially cover an item with their hand when they take it from the shelf.

在過去的一年中，Amazon Go的技術(shù)團隊一直在改進算法，訓練它處理這些情況，包括客戶從貨架上拿走商品時手可能部分擋住商品的情況。

To help facilitate identification, certain items in the store such as sandwiches also have a special dot code on top, similar to a bar code but designed with circles and diamonds that make it easier for a camera to read from a distance.

為了便于識別，商店中的某些商品(如三明治)在頂部也有一個特殊的點碼，它類似于條形碼，但被設(shè)計成圓形和菱形，以方便攝像機遠距離讀取。

While Mr Kumar vowed that the technology was “very, very accurate”, he declined to specify when the company might open other Amazon Go stores. “We’d love to build more,” he said, without elaborating.

雖然庫馬爾發(fā)誓說這項技術(shù)“非常非常準確”，但他拒絕透露公司何時開設(shè)其他的Amazon Go商店。他說：“我們很想開更多店，”但沒有詳細說明。

Mr Kumar also said the company has “no plans” to introduce its checkout-free shopping in any Whole Foods stores, nor in the Amazon bookstores.

庫馬爾還表示，該公司“沒有計劃”在任何全食門店或亞馬遜書店推出免排隊結(jié)賬購物服務(wù)。

Nevertheless, in the year since Amazon first unveiled plans to reinvent the grocery store with Amazon Go, rivals have raced to invest in similar technologies as they battle for market share of the $800bn US grocery business.

然而，在亞馬遜首次公布以Amazon Go重塑雜貨店的計劃以來的一年里，競爭對手們紛紛投資于類似的技術(shù)，以爭搶美國8000億美元雜貨市場的份額。

Plans have ratcheted up since Amazon acquired Whole Foods last summer. In the ensuing months bankers have worked closely with their brick-and-mortar clients to help them come up with a tech-centric defence to the threat.

自去年夏天亞馬遜收購全食以來，類似計劃大幅增加。在這筆收購后的幾個月中，銀行家們與他們的實體店客戶密切合作，幫助他們構(gòu)建以技術(shù)為核心的防御措施。

Some of those moves are already materialising as Kroger, the largest standalone US grocery chain, is rolling out its own take on the cashier-free experience this year. Visitors to a Kroger supermarket will be able to scan the barcodes of food on their smartphone as they walk through the aisles, and pay at a self-checkout machine upon leaving the store. The company says it will roll this technology out to 400 of its more than 2,700 stores in 2018.

其中一些舉措已經(jīng)實現(xiàn)，美國最大的獨立食品連鎖企業(yè)克羅格(Kroger)今年正在推出自己的免收銀購物體驗。在克羅格超市，顧客可以在瀏覽貨架時用智能手機掃描食物的條形碼，然后在離開超市時在自助結(jié)賬機上結(jié)賬。該公司表示，將在2018年將這一技術(shù)推廣到其2700多家店鋪中的400家。

Walmart, which derives more than half of its nearly $500bn annual sales from food, is testing a grocery shopping experience without cashiers in places including Dallas and Orlando. The company says that by the end of this month, 100 of its supermarkets will allow customers to buy groceries through a smartphone app — only interacting with a human when they show their digital receipt to an employee before walking out the door.

在沃爾瑪(Walmart)近5000億美元的年銷售額當中，逾一半來自食品銷售。沃爾瑪正在達拉斯和奧蘭多等地嘗試推出沒有收銀員的購物體驗。該公司表示，到本月底，將有100家超市允許顧客通過智能手機應(yīng)用購買商品——唯一與人打交道的時候是在出門前向員工展示數(shù)字收據(jù)。

Doug McMillon, chief executive of Walmart, has referred to himself as a "gadget-guy" and promised to mould Walmart into more of a tech company since he took the helm in 2014. At a conference last week, he boiled down the challenge, and the impetus, for retailers’ race to cut the queues.

沃爾瑪首席執(zhí)行官董明倫(Doug McMillon)自稱是個“工具人”，他自2014年掌舵沃爾瑪以來一直承諾要讓沃爾瑪更像一家科技公司。董明倫在上周的一次會議上總結(jié)了零售商競相減少排隊的挑戰(zhàn)和動力。

“All around the world,” he said, “people want to save money and they want to save time.”

他說：“在世界各地，人們都希望省錢、省時間。”