Amazon Go may soon be expanding to 6 new locations, reports says

A lot of people will gleefully praise the end of the checkout line without realizing they are praising someone’s job loss. (Reuters)

It’s been exactly a month since Amazon opened its highly anticipated cashier-less convenience stores, Amazon Go. Now, the company is looking to bring the simplicity of literal grab-and-go to more markets across the U.S. According to Recode, the retail giant is hoping to plan up to six more Amazon Go locations by the end of 2018.

It seems most likely that the new storefronts will open in other areas of Amazon’s headquarter city of Seattle, as well as other West Coast hubs like Los Angeles. According to Recode, Amazon has already held a series of “serious talks” with the billionaire developer Rick Caruso about hosting one of the Go’s in The Grove, the famous 600,000-square foot outdoor shopping center in the heart of L.A.

Los Angeles would be a rather natural fit for an Amazon Go, as the company has previously used the Californian metropolis as a testing ground for a number of new initiatives. For example, L.A. was the first city outside of Seattle that saw the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service and will also soon be home to Amazon’s new shipping service meant to compete directly against UPS and FedEx.

Of course, no city incubates as many of Amazon’s new ideas as its hometown of Seattle. Recode’s sources say that the company is looking into at least three additional locations for the money-less convenience stores in the Emerald City. That said, Amazon has remained quiet on its plans for the future of Amazon Go.

In any case, with only a month of public testing under its belt, it seems that it will still be a while before Amazon begins expanding this latest retail project. If it proves successful, it could certainly help Amazon establish even more dominance over the grocery industry, which seems to be near the top of its list of priorities these days, what with its recent acquisition of Whole Foods. There are even rumors that Amazon could attempt to integrate the Amazon Go system into existing Whole Foods locations, making the checkout process seamless and perhaps attracting a larger customer base. That, however, would require quite a bit of retrofitting, and may not ultimately come to fruition.

In any case, for the time being, you have to pay a visit to Seattle if you want to know what it’s like to (legally) take something for a store without stopping by a register first.