Amazon Physical Stores

Just Walk Out shopping receipts

The short version

We faced technical constraints that made realtime receipts impossible for Just Walk Out shopping, and the lag would increase based on the size of the store and the number of items being purchased.

With the obvious solution out of reach, I worked with partners, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to come up with multiple approaches to lessen the impact of this issue. I did multiple explorations and reviews, followed by testing with users in a mock store to see which ones had the most potential.

We were able to identify a few options that could help in the short term and additional strategies for more exploration. However, the team was down-sized and priorities were shifted before we were able to move forward on the other strategies.

We faced technical constraints that made realtime receipts impossible for Just Walk Out shopping, and the lag would increase based on the size of the store and the number of items being purchased.

With the obvious solution out of reach, I worked with partners, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to come up with multiple approaches to lessen the impact of this issue. I did multiple explorations and reviews, followed by testing with users in a mock store to see which ones had the most potential.

We were able to identify a few options that could help in the short term and additional strategies for more exploration. However, the team was down-sized and priorities were shifted before we were able to move forward on the other strategies.

We faced technical constraints that made realtime receipts impossible for Just Walk Out shopping, and the lag would increase based on the size of the store and the number of items being purchased.

With the obvious solution out of reach, I worked with partners, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to come up with multiple approaches to lessen the impact of this issue. I did multiple explorations and reviews, followed by testing with users in a mock store to see which ones had the most potential.

We were able to identify a few options that could help in the short term and additional strategies for more exploration. However, the team was down-sized and priorities were shifted before we were able to move forward on the other strategies.

The deets

Role: UX Lead (remote)

Skills: Facilitation, prototyping, stakeholder management

Scope: 1P and 3P JWO stores worldwide

Duration: May 2022 - Jan. 2023

Result: Multiple incremental improvements

The backstory

Just Walk Out (JWO) is the technology that powers Amazon's checkout-less shopping experience in physical stores. It debuted in 2016 with Amazon Go and then expanded into Fresh and Whole Foods grocery stores as well as many 3P partner retailers in the convenience, travel, and events verticals in the US and UK.

What's the problem?

The lack of real-time receipts, taking up to 3 hours in some cases, is one of the biggest customer experience issues with Just Walk Out shopping. This, along with some other issues

  • Receipt latency, not available while in store

  • Accessing receipts requires information from payment card charges

  • Customers don't know they need to sign up for email receipts

  • Customers don't notice the receipt kiosk to sign up in the store

  • No way to sign up for email receipts after leaving the store

Where I come in…

My role was UX Lead for payments and post-purchase customer experience. There wasn't a clear set of requirements for this one, just a desire to reduce customer pain. Partners and stakeholders were open to just about anything. As someone who likes ambiguity, I appreciated that we could think about root causes and explore multiple solution paths.

What we did…

Faced with many hard constraints, I led brainstorming sessions with different teams and subject matter experts to come up with a range of options where we could make improvements...

  • Provide proof of purchase at exit

  • Reduce friction on receipt website

  • Promote linking to Amazon account for easier access to receipts

  • Improve discoverability for in-store receipt kiosks

  • Combine receipt sign up with authentication

I outlined pros and cons for all the options, scoped the work, made notes of dependencies, and decided which ones needed to be tested before making recommendations to stakeholders. I built high-fidelity prototypes to run on our pedestal hardware and we also created working physical prototypes for proposed hardware and tested with users in a mock store in our design studio.

How it worked out…

Our final recommendation was to prioritize getting customer emails associated with payment cards for automatic email receipts. We outlined a multi-faceted approach to achieve that goal.

  • Opt-in to import email from Amazon for recognized customers

  • Redesign receipt kiosk and optimize placement in the store

  • Enable email signup on receipt website for future orders

  • Enable simple accounts for looking up receipts online

Though our roadmap was approved by stakeholders, the layoffs in January of 2023 interrupted implementation of these proposals.

The takeaway

Though we technically had an open field for exploration, we still faced many challenges beyond the design itself. Much of the work involved disrupting bias, disproving popular ideas and demonstrating the viability of less popular ones.

  • Strong opposition to adding any steps in authentication CX

  • Different authentication models demanded different solutions

  • No flexibility on security requirements without contact info

  • Physical and technical constraints on kiosk placement

The solutions weren't sexy or revolutionary, but it was progress. We pushed back on constraints, questioned assumptions, and tested theories. Like the crow in Aesop's fable, we just kept putting pebbles in the pitcher to get the water within reach.