Almost a decade ago, Amazon.com Inc. leased a space at the base of a luxury apartment building in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood to build what was supposed to be its first retail store. The company outfitted it with technology that, it said, would allow people to purchase items by plucking them from the shelves and leaving without stopping at a cashier. Amazon called the system “Just Walk Out.”When the store opened on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, it was a 10,437-square-foot demonstr...