Amazon UK grocery store takes step forward as trademark registered

Amazon has given a clear hint that it intends to expand its cashier-free grocery store into the UK, as the threat to jobs from technology gathers pace.

The online retailer has registered a British trademark for Amazon Go - currently being trialled by staff only in Seattle but due to open fully next year.

The idea is that shoppers pick up groceries in-store and pay through the use of a smartphone app.

It will use technology that automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to shelves, allowing customers with the app to walk out of the store without queuing or scanning their items.

Payments would be made via Amazon accounts.

The company is yet to confirm any plans to expand the project beyond the United States but the concept chimes with a recent warning from the governor of the Bank of England on the threat to jobs posed by technology.

The UK retail sector employs almost three million people though the effects of the fourth industrial revolution, as some see the shift, applies to many areas of the economy.

While robotic technology and machinery have replaced humans in a number of sectors from car manufacturing to sorting post, the outsourcing firm Capita said on Thursday, after issuing a profits warning, that it intended to replace 2,000 staff with "robotic solutions".

Amazon already has a presence in the British grocery market through a wholesale deal with Morrisons.

Amazon Go is less likely to challenge online delivery, more the shopping experience in physical stores.

Nicla Di Palma, an equity analyst at wealth manager Brewin Dolphin, said of the concept: "I would say that it is even more likely to work in the UK than in the US.

"For example, one of the reasons why Fresh & Easy - Tesco's business in the US - did not succeed was that they were focusing on self-checkout, whilst the American consumer likes service."