Starbucks without checkout in Manhattan. My visiting experience

This week’s news is that a joint project between Starbucks and AmazonGo has opened in Manhattan.

I could not help but go and check for myself.

Trampled the floor of Manhattan from the office and here’s my story.

Let me compare three scenarios for visiting Starbucks.

A typical trip to Starbucks:

• Logged in

• Ordered coffee and some sandwich

• Said name, paid

• Heard the name, took

• Gone

5 minutes

The scenario you’d expect from a completely automated Starbucks + Amazon Go:

• Logged in

• Took coffee and a sandwich

• Gone

1 minute.

Obviously, all the magic must happen in the order and payment, somehow everything is there for it to happen.

Reality:

• Buried in the turnstile from the entrance

• Asked how to get in (and yes, I missed the prompts on the walls)

• Opened the AmazonGo app

• Found a section with QR in the menu

• Brought up, scanned

• I went (!)

• I took a sandwich / salad off the shelf

• I went to look for where to get coffee

• I walked around the whole institution 2 times

• Came to ask the manager

• Received a reply that an order must be made in another application – Starbucks (WTF?)

• Went to download. Oh no! Russian app store has another Starbucks app

• I went to order manually through the manager

• I paid as usual (the POS terminal is hidden in a secret box, well, so that no one like to see that this is also possible)

• Said the name

• Didn’t hear my name after the performance, but saw it on the screen.

• Went to pick up coffee

• Buried from the inside into the entrance turnstile, coffee is on the shelf outside

• Asked to give my coffee to the manager.

• I waited for him to help someone else before me.

• Went with coffee to salad / sandwich (has anyone there eaten it yet?)

• Ate inside

• Buried in the turnstile at the exit

• Asked if you need to pay (well, just in case)

• Gone

15 minutes.

PS: The money for the salad, which is debited automatically, was not debited. Here’s a bonus 🙂

Paul of Manhattan will no longer go, at the entrance many turned around, unable to enter.

It looks like they took an advanced idea, but they never got married Coffee and the Shop. Technologies, in my opinion, should still speed up and simplify life, and not vice versa.

Who cares read an article in English about this coffee shop…