The O2 arena has opened its first self-serve bar featuring Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology.
The store offers snacks, packaged soft and alcoholic drinks and, for the first time, beer is sold on draught to pick up and go.
The O2 is the latest company to invest in the Amazon Just Walk Out tech, which is being rolled out to third parties.
To date there are around a dozen venues featuring Amazon Just Walk Out technology in the UK plus 20 Amazon Fresh stores and 160 worldwide, a 100% increase on the previous year.
Locations include arenas, stadia, hospitals and universities.
A second self-serve store will open in October at The O2, which operates 40 manned bars across retail and hospitality at the arena.
Adam Pearson, commercial director from The O2, said the technology enabled the arena to serve a larger number of people and the intention was for multiple stores.
Steve Gurney, worldwide head of retail industry at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said Amazon had expanded its Just Walk Out technology to nine stores at the Lumen Field stadium in Seattle, for example, and the number of UK sites had trebled since 2023.
Customers tap their payment card or mobile wallet to enter the bar, take what they want and leave. The Just Walk Out technology uses camera sensors and AI-generated images and video clips to understand shopper journeys and how people shop ie when they pick up a product or put it back on the shelf. Items are added to a virtual basket before shoppers exit the store. The tech links each customer with their preferred choice of payment and a temporary code, which disappears when they leave the store.
The technology can also distinguish between a single person or a group, purchasing on one card. The O2 self-serve bar is operated in partnership with the payments processor Adyen and Levy, part of the catering group Compass.
Despite the multiple technologies at the site, The O2 self-serve bar is still manned and staff adhere to the Challenge 25 rule, for age restricted products, on the entrance and also remove all bottle tops, for instance.
Pearson said speed was the key benefit. “There will always be a human element but the technology frees up labour elsewhere in the building.”
The technology also provides opportunities for The O2, which operates 200-220 shows a years, to cater to different audiences, ramping up the draught beer offering over RTDs or having fewer soft drinks on sale at a boxing match versus a family event, for example.
“The technology is very adaptable and there is an opportunity to iterate within a show,” said Gurney.
“It does a good job for someone new to the market and we will get better at communicating what it is,” added Pearson. “Customers typically come to The O2 once a year – we are very happy with the early adoption.”
