Amazon has opened a cashier-free supermarket in London. This is its first physical expansion  outside the United States. Al Arabiyya reports that Amazon’s contactless Fresh shop in West London was opened on Thursday.

The company says the store is the first in a wave of shops in London that will be using its automated checkout technology. There are already 26 cashier-free convenience stores operating in the United States under Amazon’s ‘Go’ brand as well as two larger supermarkets called ‘Amazon Go Grocery’.

Shoppers scan a QR code on their smartphone app which enables them to enter the store. Cameras and sensors track what’s taken off shelves as shoppers fill their shopping bags with groceries. While customers purchases are charged to an Amazon account, a receipt sent by email.

The most appealing feature of the store, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, seems to be that there’s no need to wait in line, hence there is an absence of anxiety experienced by shoppers as to whether the protocols regarding social distancing are being observed or not.

Umm Muhammed Umar