Dive Brief:

• E-commerce behemoth Amazon defended its “Just Walk Out” checkout technology Wednesday, using a company blog post to tout its performance in settings where customers are seeking a small number of items, such as in sports stadiums, hospitals and college campuses.
• However, Amazon’s smart grocery carts have performed better than the grab-and-go tech in the company’s own Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods stores, the post said. A real-time receipt from the cart helps customers shop within their budget, the company asserted, even though they end up spending 10% more with the carts, according to the post.
• The company plans to expand the use of smart carts and Just Walk Out technology through third-party stores, according to the post. The frictionless checkout tech is currently in about 140 stores globally and the smart carts are currently available in select Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores, the post said.

Dive Insight:

The company’s blog post clarified its strategy after it had quietly pulled back this month on its grab-and-go technology at both its Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods grocery stores. The company had announced in February that it was expanding a pilot program of its smart carts to a total of six Whole Foods stores, but the blog post did not say if the carts would be available in more Whole Foods stores.

The carts will become available across the company’s Amazon Fresh stores, Friday’s post from the company said.

Seattle-based Amazon has tested multiple ways to speed up the payment process for in-person purchases, including Just Walk Out, smart carts and its Amazon One biometric payments option. The carts and grab-and-go system both use sensors and scanners to remove the need for a cashier to ring up purchases, but after years of testing, Amazon has now publicly stated it will deploy different options for different kinds of stores.

Amazon also mentioned the rollout of its biometric payments system, which uses a scan of a customer’s handprint, in the latest blog post. The company had deployed the system across its Whole Foods grocery stores.

Amazon did not say how many customers are actually using the system in Whole Foods stores, instead noting that the service had been used about eight million times over time across locations including grocery stores, stadiums and airports.

As for the carts, Price Chopper and McKeever’s Market grocery stores are currently testing them in Kansas and Missouri, according to a CNBC report.