Amazon’s new smart grocery cart is just another step to a cashierless future

Amazon is intent on leaving its mark on the traditional grocery shopping industry. After buying Whole Foods a few years ago and launching a chain of cashierless grocery stores, Amazon’s latest innovation in the grocery world is a smart grocery cart, dubbed the Dash Cart.

As CNBC reports, the Dash Cart is designed around Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology. The technology has long been in place at Amazon Go stores, which let customers shop and walk out with items without needing to ring them up at a cashier station. The Dash Cart is the next iteration of that tech.

Here’s how it works: customers will fill up their Dash Cart with the goods they want to buy. A screen on the cart will update in real-time, listing all the products in the cart as well as the total price. If a customer removes an item from the cart, it will be subtracted from the list of items being purchased automatically.

A series of cameras in the cart, all of which use computer vision technology, helps the cart keep track of what the shopper is adding. However, the Dash Cart also sports a built-in scale, too, so customers can use it to buy goods that need to be weighed without the need to ring those items up at a cashier station. Other features of the cart include a coupon scanner.

When a customer is ready to leave the store with their goods, they’ll exit via a special Dash Cart line where they can bag their goods. Their credit card on file on their Amazon account will then automatically be charged and they’ll be emailed a receipt.

The Dash Cart will launch at the company’s upcoming Woodland Hills, CA, store later this year.