The Houston Astros of Major League Baseball have added Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to two food and beverage stores at Minute Maid Park. Fans can insert their credit card at each store’s entry gate before grabbing items from the shelves and having their card charged for those items as they exit the store.
Amazon’s computer vision cameras and sensors identify items grabbed by individual shoppers inside the store, allowing for a checkout-free experience. Products taken from the shelves will be added to a visitor’s virtual cart. When they return an item to the shelf, it is automatically removed from their virtual cart. Fans purchasing alcohol at either location will be required to show identification to a store employee. Amazon also operates its Just Walk Out retail technology at sports venues such as Climate Pledge Arena, UBS Arena, TD Garden and the United Center.
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“Our technology is designed to deliver a fast and frictionless shopping experience, so we’re thrilled to help eliminate checkout lines for fans when they need to refuel during games and between innings,” Dilip Kumar, VP of physical retail & technology at Amazon, said in a statement.
The Seattle Kraken’s Just Walk Out stores at Climate Pledge Arena additionally offer Amazon’s palm recognition for payments, though MLB’s press release has no mention of that technology being offered at Minute Maid Park. Amazon signed a deal last year with the AEG-owned ticket service AXS to implement its Amazon One palm recognition at entertainment venues. The Red Rocks music venue in Colorado planned to use the palm-scanning tech on guests for ticket entry but stopped after music artists protested its planned use at a concert in March. That protest was led by Evan Greer, a director of the advocacy group Fight for the Future.
“This is awesome because Red Rocks was one of the first major concert venues in the country to start experimenting with this type of biometric surveillance technology. Them dropping Amazon will send a strong message to other venues,” Greer wrote on Twitter in March.
