Amazon announces new version of its Dash Cart, expands to first Whole Foods Market Store

Amazon’s Dash Cart – a smart shopping cart that helps make grocery trips quicker by skipping the checkout line – was introduced in September 2020 and is available for use at many Amazon Fresh stores across the U.S. According to Amazon's announcement, the new version of the Dash Cart offers new features to make shopping even easier and more convenient:

• The new carts weigh less than the original version but have more than double the capacity of the previous carts, holding four grocery bags instead of two.
• Carts now include a delicates shelf as well as a lower shelf for oversized items.
• The new carts are weather resistant so they can go all the way to the car.
• The Dash Cart screen will now display images of fresh items nearby, like produce, for shoppers to choose from, or shoppers can type in the item name (“tomato,” for example) instead of a four-digit PLU code.
• The carts’ ability to more precisely determine where the cart is in the store to better show nearby products and deals.
• The carts feature an extended all-day battery life that requires less charging.

Amazon also announced that the new version of the Dash Cart will be available for use at the Whole Foods Market store in Westford, Massachusetts, in the coming months, followed by a few additional Whole Foods Market stores and many Amazon Fresh stores in the U.S.

How it works:

• Shoppers log in through a QR code in the Amazon or Whole Foods Market app to begin using the cart.
• Shoppers place their bags (if using them) in the cart and start shopping, scanning their items using one of the cameras near the handlebar of the Dash Cart.
• The cart uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to help verify each item placed in – and removed from – the cart.
• The Dash Cart’s screen shows a real-time receipt of all items in the cart, and when shoppers are ready to check out, they simply exit the store through the Amazon Dash Cart lane, and their payment is processed using the credit card associated with their Amazon account.
• Shoppers receive an emailed receipt shortly after leaving the store.