Amazon is bringing its palm-based payments to all Whole Foods Market stores
Updated: Jul 21, 2023
Amazon is now bringing its palm-based payments to all Whole Foods Market Stores. This new technology is designed to make the shopping experience quicker and more convenient for customers. Amazon One will be available in every US store by the end of the year.
The company has been testing its palm-scanning payment system at its Amazon Go stores in Seattle since 2018, and now it's expanding to Whole Foods Market.
Other companies are already experimenting with facial recognition and voice recognition payment systems. It's exciting to see how technology is changing the way we shop and pay for our purchases.
As before, you can hover your palm over a reader to pay for your shopping or make use of your Prime perks. You won't have to pull out your phone or wallet if you've already signed up online.
Amazon One is already available in 200-plus stores in states like California, New York, and Texas. The expansion will bring it to over 500 shops. The tech is also available in some third-party locations. You can buy beer at the Colorado Rockies' stadium, or get breakfast at a Panera Cafe.
The system has also been steadily rolling out to Whole Foods locations, ahead of today’s announcement. Currently, Amazon One is available at over 200 Whole Foods Markets in the U.S., including in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It will now expand nationwide over the last half of the year.
To use the system, customers can pre-enroll via the web using their credit or debit card, Amazon account, and mobile number in about a minute. Amazon has partnerships with American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa, and other major U.S. banks, it says.
Customers then complete their enrollment process the first time they scan their palm over the Amazon One device when visiting a participating Whole Foods location. They can also choose to register at an Amazon One device in the store if they prefer.
The approach has its critics, however. Activists have called on music venues and other locations to drop Amazon One over privacy and human rights concerns.
While Amazon touts secure cloud storage for palm signatures as well as anti-tampering protections, opponents are concerned governments could use the data to track protesters and marginalized people. Objectors are also worried hackers could still take and abuse data.
Amazon maintains that One users are explicitly consenting to data collection, but it's not clear that's enough to honor the legislation. As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more innovative payment systems that will make shopping even more convenient for customers.
When you enroll for it, you register both your left and right palm so the device can recognize either for payment. I can see its utility, and it's employed in some Whole Foods self-checkout systems. Amazon Fresh's cart scan's a barcode on your phone and the palm payment method isn't even needed at all. Definitely some interesting ways to give solutions to what others didn't really think was a problem.
I guess the nice part is that you can never be caught out without a payment method. It'd be a really neat technology to have everywhere but obviously it raises huge privacy concerns.
Less interesting than I originally thought. This really just replaces the payment part of the checkout process right? So you still wait in line at checkout but instead of using the back of my wrist for payment (ie, Apple Watch), I'd flip my hand over and use my palm?
I understand the DMV has my fingerprint on file, but Amazon definitely does not need any biometric data on me or anyone else.