Goodbye checkout tills and hello Amazon Fresh – is nothing sacred?

I thought tap and go was revolutionary at the time. But soon that’ll be archaic, won’t it, writes Konnie Huq

Members of staff assist customers as they wait to enter the UK’s first branch of Amazon Fresh in Ealing, west London (Getty)

I live in Ealing, population of about 340,000. It’s a leafy, green suburb, quick to get to central London on the A40, quick to get out to the countryside via multiple links (A40, M4, the North Circular), quick to abscond the country (should I ever commit a heinous crime) via Heathrow airport – well connected you could say but most definitely not in the hub. Definitely 0208 as opposed to 0207 (millennials and younger, look it up).

Parts of it have a villagey vibe, parts of it don’t. The local council is currently trying to give it a skyline to rival New York City but that’s another story. A sad one. We like Ealing cos it’s not too trendy, it’s not too snooty and it’s not too down at heel.

During lockdown, Ealing has been a good place to live, due to the vast number of parks and green spaces it has. It has historically been called “queen of the suburbs” because of this and the Ealing council logo is quite fittingly a tree, though if it’s not careful this might need replacing by a skyscraper soon.

Near to us is a small local high street, which made the regional news when it won the accolade of London’s “best British high street” a few years ago. It’s an 800-metre stretch of small independent shops, estate agents and eateries flanked at each end by a Co-op. The local library from which I got some of the first books I read exists there to this day, as does the playgroup at St Barnabas Church, that both me and my eldest son attended. (My younger one went to the one at my elder son’s school merely for ease.)

I remember in the Nineties recession, Pitshanger Lane had been a ghost town with boarded-up shops and whitewashed windows. Tumbleweed blowing down the main thoroughfare would not have felt out of place.

It’s been really nice recently to see the lane busy, bustling and brimming with a thriving trade, well as much as permissible during a pandemic with social distancing and domestic lockdown. There are queues outside the butchers, bakers and green grocers, people clutching on to their bags for life as they walk back home with their purchases. To this extent it feels like local trade has had a bit of a boost during the last year.

So, you can imagine our surprise when Ealing popped up on national (not regional) news as the subject of a new local shopping story. This time, though, not in relation to the award-winning Pitshanger Lane but it’s streetwise older sibling, Ealing Broadway.

“Ealing Broadway high street is to become the guinea pig for a new experience in convenience shopping,” the newsreader announced. “The Amazon Fresh store, the first of its kind in the UK, will be a cashless one and cardless one too, for that matter.” Huh? Convenience shopping? Amazon? Surely you can’t get any more convenient than the experience they already offer of being able to purchase more or less anything without even having to get out of the comfort of your own bed? Although I suppose you do have to walk to the front door at some point to intercept the humongous cardboard box and brown packing paper delivering the thimble you just ordered. And for some, this may even involve stairs.

On further investigation, I discovered there are only 11 other such Amazon Fresh shops in existence, all of which are in the US. Not content on cashing in on the pandemic and accruing over $21bn in profits last year alone, Amazon now wants to infiltrate the $900bn US grocery market and, it seems, the UK one too, starting in Ealing.

Not possessing an Amazon account, I am exempt from this new local shopping experience but I have a friend who has been. You get a unique QR code via your Amazon account, use it to enter the shop and then you can go wild and proceed to act like a shoplifter, sticking whatever you want straight into your rucksack or bag or down your top for all they care. When you’re done, you just walk out. No cashiers, no checkout tills, no goodbye. The experience is so freaky they are employing people to tell you it’s OK to exit.

On returning home, my friend confirmed that Amazon had indeed charged her for everything she had purchased including a lone red pepper. No packaging, no barcode, no distinguishing features, other than those all red peppers already possess. Just a regular lone red pepper. Does it contain radioactive fluid? How even is this possible?

I am determined to shoplift from the Amazon store. It now feels like a challenge I must rise to, although admittedly it’s going to be a task to even get through the doors in the absence of an Amazon account and unique QR code. Ugh, felled at the first hurdle.

I thought “tap and go” was revolutionary at the time. But soon will that be archaic? What, you had to physically carry a card? Yes.

I remember when I had to queue outside shops in Pitshanger Lane and walk to the front door to get parcel deliveries. Oh, those analogue days before Amazon ruled the world.

Konnie Huq’s children’s book Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World is out now.