Amazon Go Comes To New York City

To bring its cashierless store concept to the Big Apple, Amazon plans to open an Amazon Go store this week to the public.

The store will be located on the second level of a shopping mall at Brookfield Place in the city’s downtown, CNBC reported.

The New York City location will also accept cash, although it won’t feature cash registers. Instead, customers will be able to have a worker with a mobile device assist them with checkout and payment. They can also use the Amazon app to scan as well as purchase items.

Brookfield Place, adjacent to the World Trade Center in Manhattan, is near office space and reportedly brings in the lunch crowd with a high-end food hall that has a “French-inspired” grocery store. The space also features a myriad of eCommerce retailers such as Rhone, b&ta and Untuckit along with an Equinox gym.

The first Amazon Go opened last January at the eCommerce retailer’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The location is filled with technologies that aren’t commonly found in a convenience store in the United States. Shoppers can select sandwiches, salads, meals and snacks in addition to wine, beer and other beverages. Shelves are also stocked with meat, product and meal kits.

Amazon also included such high-tech conveniences as speedy checkout to reach new brick-and-mortar customers, which takes away the need to wait in lines to pay upon exiting the store. While Amazon Go didn’t reportedly need cashiers, there were workers who perform such tasks as checking IDs for alcohol purchases as well as preparing food in the store’s kitchen.

In September, it was reported that Amazon could bring 3,000 Amazon Go locations to fruition by 2021. An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in an emailed statement at the time, however, that “we don’t comment on rumors or speculation.” Also, the same month, it was reported that an Amazon Go location opened in Chicago.