March 23, 2023
The American bakery-café chain Panera Bread has announced that it will be testing Amazon’s palm-scanning technology in two of its St. Louis locations.
The pilot program aims to give customers a more personalized and faster experience when connecting to their loyalty program and making payments. Amazon One, the company’s contactless technology, has already been installed in over 200 locations both inside and outside the company.
In the coming months, the new agreement with Panera Bread is expected to expand to 10 to 20 cafes. To use the technology, customers must enroll in Amazon One and link their MyPanera account.
Amazon’s deployment of contactless technology, according to Vice President Dilip Kumar, reflects rising demand despite macroeconomic challenges. While Amazon has not provided specific growth figures, as of June 2022, more than 69 locations in the United States and the United Kingdom already had the technology.
Over 50 of the installations were with independent retailers, stadiums, and university customers, with the remainder located in Whole Foods and other Amazon locations. Kumar explained that expanding the deployment of the technology was part of Amazon’s business model of selling software and devices as a service.
Amazon has declined to disclose the value of the transaction, but Kumar stated that the business model would be similar to selling software and devices as a service.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
