The newest Dash Cart was introduced in Whole Foods Market stores in three cities last year and will now be expanded to dozens of the grocery store chain’s locations across the United States by the end of the year, the company said in a Jan. 7 press release.
The shopping cart’s built-in screen displays prices, keeps a running total as the customer shops, offers an Alexa shopping list integration that lets the customers check off items as they pick them up, provides an interactive map of the store, and delivers personalized deals on items that are located nearby, according to the release.
The Dash Cart also features a redesigned version of the built-in scanner that lets customers bypass the checkout line. The scanner is now more responsive and is positioned next to the screen to make scanning easier, the release said.
There is also a built-in produce scale alongside the screen, allowing customers to weigh the item, see the price and continue shopping, per the release.
Physically, the new Dash Cart is 25% lighter than the previous model while also offering 40% greater capacity, according to the release.
The latest cart also offers an expanded range of payment options that now includes credit card, mobile payments and the linked payment method on the customer’s Amazon account, according to the release.
“Amazon’s Dash Cart continues to evolve based on customer feedback, with these latest improvements reflecting what shoppers value most: saving time, staying on budget and making grocery shopping more convenient,” the company said in the release.
Amazon introduced its first smart shopping cart at a single grocery store in July 2020. At the time, the cart tracked orders and charged customers to their linked credit cards, letting them skip checkout lines.
In June 2022, the company said the smart shopping carts used at its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations would contribute anonymous data to power its Store Analytics service, which shows brands “how their products are discovered, considered and purchased” in the stores.
When the company began rolling out an updated Dash Cart in July 2022, Amazon said it doubled the smart shopping cart’s capacity, allowed for parking lot unloading and began including images of fresh produce and other products on the display screen.
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