A few observations about Amazons attempt to upgrade the 7-Eleven concept:

1. I visited four Go locations (the fifth one was closed for remodeling), and tried to trick the system with no success. You enter and leave through a turnstile. You use an Amazon phone app to check in and tell the store youre beginning to shop. Cameras mounted in the ceiling follow the outline of your body theyre not using facial recognition to see what youre putting into a bag and leaving with. Weight sensors built into the shelves can tell when an item is removed or put back. Would I be mistakenly charged if I picked up lots of items and the put them back in their proper locations? Nope. What if I picked up a few items and put them into a nearby slot, rather than where they were supposed to go? Nope. What if I brought in a bottle of water thatd Id acquired elsewhere, put it on a shelf with other bottled waters, and then removed it? Still no charge. I thought about opening a bag of chips, eating a few, and then leaving it in the store, but that seemed like going a tad too far.

2. You really have to trust that the system will charge you properly, because you cant see a running tally while in the store, or even after exiting through the turnstiles. You get an alert on your phone about eight to 10 minutes after your visit and can access the receipt in the Go app. A few hours later, a receipt is e-mailed. But as I mentioned, there were zero mistakes in four store visits, even though I was trying to fool the system.

3. There are no Slurpees, Slush Puppies, milkshakes, or other frozen beverages. Amazon Go feels like a convenience store designed in the healthy mold of Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017. Youll find plastic packs of cut cantaloupe, salmon sesame power bowls, Seventh Generation recycled paper towels, and La Croix sparkling waters but not a lot of roadside standards like lottery tickets, cigarettes, or six flavors of M&Ms.

4. A surprising number of items in each store were out of stock. A brown sign reading So good its gone! could be seen all over the place. Was Amazon having problems with its supply chain? Is the company opting not to restock certain items? According to an e-mailed statement from the company, The selection available at any given time in our Amazon Go stores can vary depending on a number of factors, such as busy meal times, store hours, deliveries and more... We always strive to offer customers the products theyre looking for when shopping with us, and we continue to use customer feedback to improve the Amazon Go experience.

5. Unlike 7-Elevens, Amazon Go stores have pretty short hours. The earliest the San Francisco stores open is 7 a.m., and the latest they close is 9 p.m. Theyre not unattended; in each store, I saw one or two employees unpacking merchandise or waiting to help customers. This isnt a giant vending machine that sells ice cream and Oreos.

6. Just like nontech companies that operate convenience stores, Amazon has a hard time keeping everything shipshape. I encountered an out-of-service restroom, a broken entry door, and counters that needed cleaning. (Maintenance bots must still be under development.) For comparison, I walked across Market Street to drop in on a 7-Eleven, and found broken soda dispensers and out-of-stock items there, too. The 7-Eleven also had two clerks working cash registers and a bit of a line of customers waiting to pay.

7. Amazon doesnt seem to be resting on its laurels by simply rolling out more stores with technology it has already created. The company continues to hire scientists, engineers, and product managers for the team working on Go in Westborough; there are 11 job openings currently listed. Amazon says the new hires will join an Advanced Projects Group developing new technologies that go well beyond the current state of the art. The group is run by an MIT alum, Jeremy De Bonet.

8. Amazon hasnt announced any plans to open Go stores in Massachusetts. (It operates about two dozen in Chicago, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco.) Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, hypothesized that one reason might be that our state has a law requiring retailers to accept cash and Amazon Go is designed around the idea that you store a credit card number on a mobile app. But a friendly Amazon clerk told me she could grant a customer without a smartphone access to the store, and roll out a special cash cart if someone insisted on paying with old-fashioned paper money. That apparently happens a couple of times a day usually tourists, I was told.

9. I didnt observe ways that Amazon is saving dramatically on the human labor required to run a convenience store. And while just walking out with no waiting was novel, there were so few people shopping in the stores I visited, and such a limited number of items available, that even with cash registers I wouldnt have expected queues. But both things could change as Amazon starts operating full-line grocery stores or pharmacies. The company is clearly still in the invest, test, and learn phase with its retail automation technology, and as weve seen, once it figures out something that is economically viable, it rolls it out in a major way.

The big upgrade that seemed to be surfacing in San Francisco last month was the ability of the Go stores to sell cups of self-serve hot coffee something that automats figured out how to do around 1902.

Scott Kirsner can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottKirsner

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On a mission to fool Amazons automated convenience stores - The Boston Globe