Have a Look Inside Amazon's First 'Smart' Grocery Store

Leslie Ignacio

Leslie Ignacio is dot.LA's editorial intern. She is a recent California State University, Northridge graduate and previously worked for El Nuevo Sol, Telemundo and NBC and was named a Chips Quinn Scholar in 2019. As a bilingual journalist, she focuses on covering diversity in news. She's a Los Angeles native who enjoys trips to Disneyland in her free time.

Have a Look Inside Amazon's First 'Smart' Grocery Store

As soon as I stepped into the new Amazon Fresh store in Woodland Hills an employee asked if I wanted to shop with a regular cart or use their 'dash cart.'

The 35,000 square foot store that opened to the public on Friday is Amazon's first so-called smart grocery store as the e-commerce giant attempts to remake in-person shopping and push into the supermarket space.


The dash cart is the center of that effort. The toy-like cart has a screen in the middle of the handles that walks you through a tutorial on how to process the different items and which also allows you to see the total price of your trip as you're shopping. It's bright green and black and smaller than your average grocery cart with no place for the dangling legs of a toddler.

I grabbed the dash cart. To start I had to open my Amazon app to sync it to the cart.

I held my account's QR code in front of a camera affixed to the cart and once scanned, the cart made a pinging sound and told me I could start shopping. Now everything I put in the cart would be charged to my account.

The cart is not required, though. And shoppers can still opt to go through a checkout stand with a clerk.

Amazon Fresh opened their store to the public last week after previously being invitation only.

The Woodland Hills location at 6245 Topanga Canyon Blvd is likely a window into the future of Amazon grocery shopping. It allows customers to shop in-store, pick up Amazon Fresh online orders within the hour and even includes a return drop off center. It comes in the middle of a pandemic in which the online retailer has seen their grocery sales triple year-over-year.

At the same time, growth of their Prime membership which is key to the grocery store experience is accelerating.

Inside Amazon Fresh Grocery Store


When I arrived on a Monday morning, the aisles were eerily quiet. Clerks that normally stock aisles or buzz around the cash register were nearly non-existent. But Alexa seemed to be everywhere.

She's also available at different stands throughout the store to help customers locate specific items.

The store has a variety of produce, a meat and seafood section, and even a kitchen area where you can pick up prepared items like sushi or pizza. It felt like Whole Foods cafeteria-like layout but a bit less expensive. The chicken tenders looked especially appealing.

The different aisles carry your typical brand name items like Quakers and Coca-Cola, but there's often signs pointing out items that are locally grown and produced. Across the store, Amazon had their own packaged goods sprinkled throughout, including in the meat and seafood section, which was filled with Fresh-branded options.

Fresh produce has a number code that needs to be entered into the monitor on the dash cart, once detected and placed in the cart it weighs the item to give the total price. Barcode items are scanned as you place them in the cart through the use of the cameras and sensors placed in the front area of the cart.

Both options release a ding sound to let you know the item has been added correctly, but the process is hardly seamless. I had to re-enter items like my strawberry flavored Chobani a few times until the cart was able to detect it.

The cart itself was very small as it can only hold two bags before overflowing with items which is not ideal for a family looking to shop for a week's worth of groceries.

Yet, the simplicity of the checkout almost felt unreal. To checkout, all I had to do was walk through the dash cart lane. Once I walked over a mat, an automated message appeared on my cart monitor showing my bill. That was it. I was done. But the experience was so new, I wasn't even sure that I paid. I asked the clerk, 'Oh, is that it?" Yep, he replied and told me to watch my email for a receipt.

I grabbed my bags and walked out, having minimal interaction with humans.

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Happy Long Weekend Los Angeles!

Sony Group is making a significant push into the blockchain and Web3 space, leveraging its Sony Pictures and Sony Music divisions along with a new global incubator. The company has developed the Soneium blockchain through Sony Block Solutions Labs, a joint venture aimed at accelerating Web3 innovation. Sony is launching the "Soneium Minato" public testnet and a developer incubation program called "Soneium Spark" to foster ecosystem growth and adoption. The initiative includes strategic partnerships with Web3 companies such as Astar Network, Circle, and Optimism. Sony aims to create a fan community centered on creators and connect diverse values through Soneium, with the ultimate goal of integrating Web3 services into people's daily lives. While the company acknowledges the challenges faced by Web3, including limited user adoption and the need for mainstream use cases, it remains committed to decentralizing the concentrated power of the current internet landscape.

In completely unrelated and more digestible news Sensible Weather, a leading weather protection provider that we’ve featured many times, has partnered with Kampgrounds of America (KOA) to offer Weather Guarantees at over 450 KOA Campgrounds across the United States. This collaboration allows campers to purchase weather protection for their outdoor experiences, providing peace of mind and potential reimbursements of up to 100% of their nightly rate if weather conditions exceed predefined parameters. The partnership comes at an opportune time, as camping has seen a significant increase in popularity, with active campers growing by 68% over the past decade. If you are looking to do some camping this fall make sure you look into Sensible Weather protections to ensure that unpredictable weather won't dampen (nailed it) your camping experience.


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    Personality Assessments Improving Workplace Dynamics

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    Image Source: iEQ9

    Enneagram

    The Enneagram test is a sophisticated personality assessment that categorizes individuals into nine distinct personality types, each defined by unique motivations, fears,and behavioral patterns. This holistic approach enhances team dynamics in a business setting by fostering self-awareness, improving communication, and facilitating conflict resolution among team members. By understanding different personality types, teams can optimize their composition, tailor professional development, and create a more empathetic and collaborative environment. This framework not only helps leaders adapt their styles to better support diverse team members but also promotes inclusivity and effective collaboration, ultimately leading to improved team performance, productivity, and retention.

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    Image Source: DiSC Profile

    DiSC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness)

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    Image Source: The Myers-Briggs Company

    The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

    The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a widely used personality assessment tool that categorizes individuals into 16 distinct personality types based on four dichotomies: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving. For businesses, the MBTI provides valuable insights into employees' communication styles, decision-making processes, and work preferences.This helps promote a more productive workplace, and enables employees to become involved in more meaningful ways, all while leveraging everyone’s unique strengths.

    Resources:The Myers-Briggs Company.

    Key Features: Focuses on preferences rather than traits. Focuses on how people perceive and judge information. Widely used in business and career counseling


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    🥊📱Startups Battling Election Deepfakes and LA’s First Tech CEO Summit

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    Happy Friday Los Angeles!

    YouMail, based in Irvine, and Pindrop have partnered to create the Election Communication Defense Grid (ECDG), a platform designed to combat AI-generated and deepfake calls that could interfere with US elections. This collaboration leverages YouMail's extensive sensor network, which analyzes over 20 million phone numbers monthly, and Pindrop's Pulse™ Inspect technology to detect AI-generated speech. The system actively monitors and analyzes potentially problematic political robocalls, having already examined calls from numerous Congress members and political candidates in 2024. When AI-generated calls are identified, YouMail Protective Services swiftly notifies carriers and enforcement agencies to shut down these campaigns, minimizing potential harm. This partnership represents a significant step forward in protecting the public from malicious communication tactics during critical election periods.


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