Amazon.com announced last week that it plans to permanently close eight of its 28 Amazon Go convenience stores. The first Go opened in January 2018 and featured the debut of its “Just Walk Out” technology.

Instacart has become a major part of how many Americans shop for groceries online. Now it is moving ahead with plans to become a fixture of how they shop in stores, as well.  Is there significant demand for scan and pay apps?

After ramping up efforts to reduce friction in the online shopping experience over the pandemic, retailers are now reportedly focusing their investments on the in-store payment process. Will scan & go, smart carts, mobile payments or any other alternative payment method gain significant traction in 2023?

Amazon on Tuesday said that it is adding the Venmo peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service to the options it provides shoppers purchasing goods from its platform. Where do you see the P2P market in the U.S heading and what will it mean for retailers and consumer direct brands?

Hollister yesterday introduced Share2Pay, which allows customers (primarily teenagers) to shop for the items they want and then share their digital cart with their mom, dad or some other adult who will pay for the purchase. Will Hollister’s Share2Pay be well received by its teenage customers and their parents?

Instacart has unveiled Connected Stores, a bundle of six Instagram-linked technologies aiming to combine the convenience, speed and personalization of online grocery shopping with the inspiration and discovery that happens in physical stores. Does Instacart’s Connected Stores suite appear to go a long way in bridging the online and offline grocery shopping experience?

Visitors to Starbucks locations inside some retailers will soon be able to order ahead via mobile, not to mention earn rewards points, just as they do when they visit standalone Starbucks locations. Do you see adding mobile pay and rewards to licensee stores as a necessary step in improving the Starbucks experience for customers?

Wegmans is ending the use of its SCAN app, saying that it could no longer afford the losses associated with the app as shoplifters exploited the technology. Is Wegmans’ experience with customers using its self-scanning tech to steal an outlier in retail or is it similar to the experience in other stores?

Many European restaurants use table-side credit card authorization terminals, irrespective of type or level of service and price points. These devices have yet to approach critical mass in the U.S. Do you expect table-side credit card authorization terminals to become commonplace in U.S. restaurants?

Consumers were eager to tip in the early stages of the pandemic to support local establishments, but tipping fatigue has reportedly set in. Has tipping become excessive and/or confusing?

Amazon just implemented its biometric palm reader at a Whole Foods location in a new market, making it look more like Amazon sees palm reading in Whole Foods’ future nationwide. Will palm-based identification become a necessary or significantly used part of Just Walk Out technology, or is it a bridge too far for most customers?

Automated grocery stores have been slowly but surely popping up worldwide since the launch of Amazon Go. Now a checkout-free concept is on its way to college campuses, along with some other new tech-enhanced food solutions for students.  Do you expect that the reaction to autonomous grocers on campuses will be different than in general markets?

Amazon.com is opening larger versions of its Amazon Go convenience store concept in the suburbs.The retail and technology giant is planning a store for Mill Creek, WA, which is located about 20 miles outside of Seattle where Amazon debuted its first Go store in 2018. Will Amazon Go convenience stores be successful in suburban locations?

According to a new report, the restaurants that go “digital-first” are the ones that are set up for success. Do you think that QR code-based menu and payment solutions, and pay-at-table technology, are what customers are looking for from restaurants?

A university study finds shopping carts with two parallel grips, instead of the standard single horizontal handlebar, could boost sales by 25 percent for grocers versus standard carts because they work the biceps instead of the triceps.  Why hasn’t the standard shopping cart been modified much since its arrival early in the twentieth century?

A new survey finds that in-store shoppers continue to showroom, or use their mobile phones to check competitor prices, but they’re also using their devices for purposes beneficial to the store they’re in.  Do mobile phones elevate or distract from the in-store shopping experience?

Multiple outlets last week posted stories indicating PayPal was in advanced talks to acquire Pinterest to transform itself into a social commerce powerhouse. On Monday morning, however, PayPal issued a brief statement clarifying that the company is “not pursuing an acquisition of Pinterest at this time.” Would the merger of PayPal and Pinterest have made sense?

Two new Whole Foods Market stores scheduled to open next year will be set up with Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to enable customers to shop without having to stop at a physical checkout stand. What are the potential and limitations of Amazon’s Just Walk Out and similar technologies to provide cashierless experiences in stores?

Customers shopping at more than 3,000 7-Elevens in the nation’s capital and 32 states around the U.S. will have the option of paying without having to stop at a checkstand. 7-Eleven plans to roll out the option by the end of 2022.  Do you see mobile checkout becoming technological table stakes in the convenience store channel over the next year?

Amazon.com is putting its cashierless Just Walk Out (JWO) technology to use in a new full-sized Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue, WA. Do you think Amazon will roll out Just Walk Out technology to all its Fresh stores and perhaps even Whole Foods?

A new grocery store in Minnesota is only staffed and open a few days each week for the general public, but members can visit any time — day or night. What do you make of Main Street Market’s hybrid staffed/unattended model and do you see other retailers implementing something similar?

Even with growing adoption, mobile shopping faces challenges in a number of areas that need to be addressed for retailers and their customers to get full benefit from the experience. What are the obvious and less obvious pain points around mobile checkout?

According to a survey from Piplsay, 89 percent of shoppers who have visited Amazon Go have had either an excellent (54 percent) or a good (35 percent) experience. Has the pandemic likely accelerated the rollout of automated checkout technology in the years ahead?

Hudson, which operates in airports, travel hubs and tourist destinations across North America, has announced the planned opening of a new store concept that allows customers to check out without having to stop at a cash register. How likely is the Hudson Nonstop store concept to connect in a positive way with airport travelers across North America?

Walmart has introduced a new store design to help millions of customers who shop at its supercenters every year reap the full advantages of the “omni-shopping experience.” Does Walmart’s new store design align with how Americans are shopping today?

Facial recognition and other forms of biometric ID have proven controversial. Yet Amazon is going live with a test of a biometric solution that will let customers pay by palm in select Amazon Go stores. Will we reach a point when using biometrics to pay at a store is widely accepted?

While there’s no evidence COVID-19 can be transmitted by cash or credit cards, the use of mobile payments and contactless cards has taken off in recent months over concerns about touching surfaces, according to research from NRF. Will adoption of mobile and contactless payments accelerate as the coronavirus crisis continues?

Germs are top-of-mind worldwide thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic and many are looking to limit physical contact, a major factor speeding adoption of contactless technologies.  Do you see contactless payment and other contactless tools becoming a significant part of the retail experience?

Amazon.com is rolling out a new smart shopping cart that will eliminate the need for customers to stop at registers in order to check out of a store. Do you expect Dash Cart to be in big demand by customers when Amazon opens its new grocery store format in Woodland Hills later this year?

New research shows that consumers are looking to continue newly developed habits once the threat of COVID-19 recedes. What do you think the impact of curbside pickup, home delivery, contactless payments and text communications has had on relationships between consumers and retailers during the pandemic?

Amazon.com announced yesterday that it has begun selling the technology behind its Amazon Go and Amazon Go Grocery concepts to other retailers. Will other retailers buy Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology?

Amazon.com is debuting its largest cashier-less food concept today with the opening of the Amazon Go Grocery store in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. What is your reaction to the opening of the Amazon Go Grocery store?

Convenience store giant 7-Eleven has announced it is testing a “cashierless” concept at its corporate headquarters in Irving, TX. Do you think there is a real future for cashierless stores in the convenience store channel?

When Amazon Go launched it was billed as the future of the convenience store, but the fully-automated retail store had one notable omission — no hot bar. Now, Amazon has plans to reopen a location with hot food and other add-ons. Are food and drink offerings compatible with Just Walk Out technology?

Retail Business Services, the technology services arm of Ahold Delhaize USA, has announced that its proprietary ScanIt Mobile frictionless checkout technology is being rolled out to nearly 30 of the grocer’s stores by the end of the year. Do you see ScanIt-like technology becoming common at retail in the years ahead?

Amazon.com is “in talks” to bring the Just Walk Out technology it uses to support its Amazon Go stores to OTG’s CIBO Express stores at airports and Cineworld’s Regal cinemas, and also exploring deals with concession stands at stadiums and baseball parks. What do you see as the biggest motivation behind Amazon’s reported exploration of leasing its Go technology?

In unveiling its new hardware devices in Seattle on Wednesday, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos made a surprise appearance and told reporters the company is working on facial recognition legislation that it plans to propose to lawmakers. Is it a smart move for Amazon to attempt to drive regulation of facial recognition technology?

A new startup is aiming to fix some of the pain points of Just Walk Out checkout technology by thinking smaller. Does technology like Veeve address enough of the concerns of Just Walk Out technology to make it a more viable alternative to Amazon Go and others?

Amazon had planned to open 56 Go locations by the end of 2019 and 156 by the end of 2020, according to a report discussed on The Verge. Amazon has in fact opened only 15 Go stores, all located in major metropolitan areas. To what factor or factors do you attribute the slower-than-expected expansion of Amazon Go?

7-Eleven knows that its customers in New York City are on the go, and the chain is looking to speed them on their way with the introduction of mobile checkouts at its stores in Manhattan. How important is checkout speed to the success of convenience stores?

Whether we’re calling it omnichannel, phygital, experiential or something else, the influx of technology into the in-store shopping experience has been one of retail’s most significant trends this decade. Is it accurate to say that stores are trying to make the in-store experience more like shopping online? Should they be?

When Amazon.com announced a c-store that would let people shop and walk out without physically conducting a transaction at a checkout, it seemed like a feat only they could pull off. Now, even regional grocers are attempting the same. What does the use of checkout-free technology by regional grocers mean for Amazon and its retail rivals?

The Sock Spot, an online retailer of novelty socks, is looking to broaden its business prospects by moving into physical retail via “automated retail units” (AKA vending machines). Do you see hi-tech vending units as a good way for digital brands to establish physical touchpoints?

For retailers, the barriers to blockchain adoption might involve wrestling with privacy issues or ease of use, but the initial roadblock may be performance. Can blockchain be scaled enough to handle retail volumes, whether for payments, marketing or IoT?

Customers are finding that retail technology is making the shopping experience better on mobile, in stores and online, according to a new study by the National Retail Federation. What is driving the changes in consumer sentiment about retail technology?

Six years after getting rid of them, Costco is again testing self-service checkouts to help combat long waits at manned registers. Do you see more pros or cons in Costco’s re-introduction of self-scan checkouts?

Walmart has had a tough time getting customers to adopt scan-and-go technology. Now Walmart Canada is piloting a layout that could change how customers think about it. Will Walmart’s new checkout approach overcome the retailer’s previous difficulties with getting customers to adopt scan-and-go?

Visitors to the first full-sized U.S. location of global sporting goods brand Decathlon will find the checkout not at the front of the store, but all around them — on the iPhones carried by the store’s staff. Is having staff stationed throughout a store at mobile stations a good way to streamline the checkout process?

In the face of growing criticism that cashless retail tech will leave a big portion of the consumer population in the U.S. behind, Amazon.com has revealed that it plans to allow customers who shop at its Amazon Go stores to pay with cash. Do you think that Amazon Go can appeal to unbanked and underbanked consumers?

While cashier-less stores like Amazon Go that feature mobile checkout have gotten much of the attention lately, Harris Teeter is testing a store featuring self-checkout-only stations. Does a self-checkout-only store make sense for a store such Harris Teeter’s that relies on smaller transaction sizes?