从亚马逊 Go到盒马鲜生,自动化商店热潮来袭

SEATTLE — To see what it is like inside stores where sensors and artificial intelligence have replaced cashiers, shoppers have to trek to Amazon Go, the internet retailer’s experimental convenience shop in downtown Seattle.

西雅图——想看看用传感器和人工智能取代了收银员的商店里是什么样的，购物者必须前往网络零售商亚马逊(Amazon)在西雅图市中心开设的试验性无人便利商店亚马逊 Go。

Soon, though, more technology-driven businesses like Amazon Go may be coming to them.

不过，更多像这样由科技驱动的商店很快就会来到购物者身边。

A global race to automate stores is underway among several of the world’s top retailers and small tech startups, which are motivated to shave labor costs and minimize shoppers’ frustrations, like waiting for cashiers. They are also trying to prevent Amazon from dominating the physical retail world as it does online shopping.

一些世界最顶级的零售商和小型科技初创公司正在全球范围内进行自动化商店的竞争，这些初创公司希望削减劳动成本，把购物者的不满——例如排队结账——降到最低。它们还在试图阻止亚马逊像控制网络购物一样掌控实体零售市场。

Companies are testing robots that help keep shelves stocked, as well as apps that let shoppers ring up items with a smartphone. High-tech systems like the one used by Amazon Go completely automate the checkout process. China, which has its own ambitious e-commerce companies, is emerging as an especially fertile place for these retail experiments.

这些公司正在测试填充货架的机器人，以及让购物者通过智能手机录入商品的应用。包括亚马逊 Go这样的高科技系统会把顾客结账的过程完全自动化。拥有众多志向远大的电商公司的中国，尤其成了进行这些零售实验的沃土。

If they succeed, these new technologies could add further uncertainty to the retail workforce, which is already in flux because of the growth of online shopping. An analysis last year by the World Economic Forum said 30-50 percent of the world’s retail jobs could be at risk once technologies like automated checkout were fully embraced.

如果它们取得成功，这些新技术可能会进一步增加零售业劳动力市场的不确定性，这个市场已经因为网络购物的增长变得不稳定。世界经济论坛(World Economic Forum)去年的一项分析指出，一旦像自动结账这样的技术完全被接受，全球30％-50％的零售业工作可能面临消失的风险。

In addition, the efforts have raised concerns among privacy researchers because of the mounds of data that retailers will be able to gather about shopper behavior as they digitize their locations. Inside Amazon Go, for instance, the cameras never lose sight of a customer once he or she enters the shop.

此外，这些努力引起了隐私研究者的担忧，因为零售商在数字化他们的店铺时可以采集大量有关购物者行为的数据。例如，在亚马逊 Go内部，购物者一旦进入商店，店内摄像头会无时无刻监视他们。

Retailers had adopted technologies in their stores long before Amazon Go arrived on the scene. Self-checkout kiosks have been common in supermarkets and other stores for years. Kroger, the grocery chain, uses sensors and predictive analytics tools to better anticipate when more cashiers will be needed.

早在亚马逊 Go出现之前就已经有零售商在店内使用自动化技术。多年来，自助结账机在超市和其他商店中已经变得很常见。杂货连锁商店克罗格(Kroger)使用了传感器和预测分析工具来更好地预测何时需要更多收银员。

But the opening of Amazon Go in January was alarming for many retailers, who saw a sudden willingness by Amazon to wield its technology power in new ways. Hundreds of cameras near the ceiling and sensors in the shelves help automatically tally the cookies, chips and soda that shoppers remove and put into their bags. Shoppers’ accounts are charged as they walk out the doors.

然而，亚马逊 Go在一月开业令很多零售商感到紧张，它们看到亚马逊突然愿意以新的方式运用其技术力量。天花板上的数百摄像头和货架上的传感器可以自动记录购物者取出并放入他们包中的饼干、薯片和汽水。购物者走出商店时，他们的帐户会自动结账。

Nowhere are retailers experimenting more avidly with automating store shopping than in China, a country obsessed by new tech fads.

在痴迷于新科技时尚的中国，零售商格外热衷于进行自动化商店实验。

One effort is a chain of more than 100 unmanned convenience shops from a startup called Bingo Box, one of which sits in a business park in Shanghai. Shoppers scan a code on their phones to enter and, once inside, scan the items they want to buy. The store unlocks the exit door after they have paid through their phones.

其中一项努力是一家名为缤果盒子的创业公司，他们开了一百多家无人连锁便利店，其中一家位于上海的一个商业园内。购物者可以用手机扫描二维码进入商店，然后在店内扫描他们想要购买的物品。通过手机付款后，商店将打开出口。

Alibaba, one of China’s largest internet companies, has opened 35 of its Hema automated grocery stores, which blend online ordering with automated checkout. Customers scan their groceries at checkout kiosks, using facial recognition to pay electronically, while bags of groceries ordered by customers online float overhead on aerial conveyors, headed to a loading dock for delivery to shoppers.

中国最大的互联网公司之一阿里巴巴开设了35家名叫盒马鲜生的自动化食杂店，将在线订购和自动结账融为一体。顾客到结账机扫描商品，使用面部识别进行电子付款，在他们的头顶，由顾客网购的食杂货物正通过空中传送带送往一个装货点，准备递送给顾客。

Not to be outdone, JD, another big internet retailer in China, said in December that it had teamed up with a developer to build hundreds of its own unmanned convenience shops. The businesses put readable chips on items to automate the checkout process.

中国另一家大型互联网零售商京东也不甘示弱，它在去年12月表示已经与开发商合作建造了数百家无人便利商店。这家企业在商品上安装了可读芯片，从而实现自动化结账。

At its huge campus south of Beijing, JD is testing a new store that relies on computer vision and sensors on the shelves to know when items have been taken. The system tracks shopping without tagging products with chips. Payment, which for now still happens at a kiosk, is done with facial recognition.

在其位于北京南边的一栋大楼里，京东正在测试一种新型商店，它依靠货架上的计算机视像和传感器来得知商品什么时候已被买走。该系统无需使用芯片标记商品就可以跟踪购物过程。结账目前还需要在收银机，是通过面部识别完成的。

JD and Alibaba both plan to sell their systems to other retailers and are working on additional checkout technologies.

京东和阿里巴巴都计划将自己的系统卖给其他零售商，并且都在研发其他结账技术。

Back in the United States, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is testing the Bossa Nova robots in dozens of its locations to reduce some tedious tasks that can eat up a worker’s time. The robots, which look like giant wheeled luggage bags, roll up and down the aisles looking for shelves where cereal boxes are out of stock and items like toys are mislabeled. The machines then report back to workers, who restock the shelves and apply new labels.

在美国，全球最大的零售商沃尔玛(Walmart)正在数十个地方测试Bossa Nova机器人，以减少一些单调乏味、耗费工人时间的任务。这些看似巨型轮式行李箱的机器人在过道里来来回回，寻找麦片脱销和玩具等物品被贴错标签的货架。然后这些机器向工人反馈，他们会补货并贴上新的标签。

At 120 of Walmart’s 4,700 U.S. stores, shoppers can also scan items, including fruits and vegetables, using the camera on their smartphones and pay for them using the devices. When customers walk out, an employee checks their receipts and does a “spot check” of the items they bought.

在美国4700家沃尔玛门店中，120家店的顾客可以用智能手机上的摄像头扫描水果和蔬菜等商品，并用智能手机付账。顾客离开时，会有一名工作人员检查他们的小票，并对他们购买的商品进行“抽查”。

Kroger, one of the country’s largest grocery chains, has also been testing a mobile scanning service in its supermarkets, recently announcing that it would expand it to 400 of its more 2,700 stores.

作为美国最大的食品杂货连锁之一，克罗格一直在自己的超市里测试一项移动扫描服务，并在最近宣布将把它扩大到其2700家门店中的400家。

New startups are seeking to give retailers the technology to compete with Amazon’s system. One of them, AiFi, is working on cashierless checkout technology that it says will be flexible and affordable enough that mom-and-pop retailers and bigger outlets can use it. In the United States, venture capitalists put $100 million into retail automation startups in each of the past two years, up from about $64 million in 2017, according Pitchbook, a financial data firm.

新的初创公司正在争取给零售商提供与亚马逊的系统竞争的技术。其中，AiFi正在研究无收银员结账技术。该公司称这种技术灵活、经济，夫妻店和较大的零售店都能使用。据金融数据公司Pitchbook称，在美国，风险投资人过去两年每年向零售自动化初创公司投资1亿美元，而2017年这个数字约为6400万美元。

“There’s a gold rush feeling about this,” said Alan O’Herlihy, chief executive of Everseen, an Irish company working with retailers on automated checkout technology that uses artificial intelligence.

“这有一种淘金热的感觉，”爱尔兰公司Everseen的首席执行官艾伦·欧赫利希(Alan O 'Herlihy)说。该公司正在与零售商合作开发使用人工智能的自动结账技术。

While such technologies could improve the shopping experience, there may also be consequences that people find less desirable. Retailers like Amazon could compile reams of data about where customers spend time inside their doors, comparable to what internet companies already know about their online habits.

这类技术虽然可能会改善购物体验，但也可能产生人们不那么喜欢的后果。像亚马逊这样的零售商可以收集大量有关顾客到店后把时间花在了哪里的数据，类似于网络公司对人们上网习惯的了解。

“It’s combined with everything else Amazon might know about you,” said Gennie Gebhart, a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties organization. “Amazon knows what I buy online, what I watch and now how I move around a space.”

“它同亚马逊可能了解到的你的其他所有信息结合起来，”在线公民自由组织电子前沿基金会(Electronic Frontier Foundation)的研究员基妮·格布哈特(Gennie Gebhart)说。“亚马逊知道我在网上买什么，看什么，现在又知道了我在一个地方的移动轨迹。”

In China, there is less public concern about data privacy issues. Many Chinese citizens have become accustomed to high levels of surveillance, including widespread security cameras and government monitoring of online communications.

在中国，公众对数据隐私问题不那么关注。很多中国公民习惯了高度的监视，包括广泛存在的监控摄像头和政府对网上交流的监视。

Depending on how heavily retailers automate in the years to come, job losses could be severe in a sector that has already experienced wave after wave of store closings by the likes of Macy’s, Toys “R” Us and Sears.

这个行业已经经历了梅西百货(Macy's)、玩具反斗城(Toys “R” Us)和西尔斯(Sears)之类一波又一波关店潮，今后失业现象可能会很严重，这具体取决于零售商在接下来几年里的自动化程度会有多高。

Retailers are playing down the threat to jobs. Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States, says that it does not anticipate automation will lead to job losses, but rather that the new technologies are meant to redirect employees to spend more time helping customers find what they need.

零售商正在淡化自动化对就业的威胁。作为美国最大的私人雇主，沃尔玛称，它预计自动化不会导致裁员，并表示新技术的本意是重新让员工把更多时间用在帮助顾客找到他们需要的东西上。