Amazon Opens Smart Grocery Store With Alexa, Prime Perks, And Dash Carts

Amazon has announced the opening of a Fresh grocery store in California, one that features a variety of smart technologies designed to improve the shopping experience. The store is, as you'd expect from a grocery store, a place where the public can purchase food, household items, and similar products. Amazon has tied its Alexa and Prime services into its business plan, as well.

The Amazon Fresh grocery store has opened its doors to the public in Woodland Hills, California. Anyone can shop there, but the experience will be particularly nice for Prime subscribers who can place their grocery orders online, then simply pick them up at the store on the same day, eliminating the need to walk around shopping.

In addition, Prime subscribers can have their grocery order delivered to their home the same day the order is placed. This is similar to Walmart's relatively new online grocery store ordering system, which includes in-person pickup and delivery — the latter of which is now free with Walmart's newly launched Walmart+ subscription system.

Amazon is boasting low prices on the goods it sells, highlighting a number of prices, including $0.15 bananas, $0.89 fresh bakery bread, and $4.97 rotisserie chicken. The Amazon Fresh grocery store is equipped with cooked foods like pizza, chicken, sushi, and other prepared products. Amazon tapped local company Rockenwagner Bakery for its Woodland Hills location, as well.

As for the technical aspects of this store, Amazon has included Alexa-powered stations that enable shoppers to find the location of the products they want. Likewise, the store is equipped with Amazon Dash Carts that enable shoppers to scan products as they go, use their Amazon account to pay, and exit through a special Dash Cart lane in the store.

During the pandemic, Amazon says it is operating this store at 50-percent its usual capacity. The location is open now in Woodland Hills, California, from 7AM to 10PM local time.