As Walmart feels the pressure of Amazon weighing down on them, they are bringing in extreme measures to keep the customers they already have, which is evidenced by the patent they filed that was recently discovered. The patent, which was filed in 2012 and approved in 2016, is for a technology that would be aimed at the lines leading up to the cash register and are supposed to detect each customer's emotion.

"It is easier to retain existing customers than acquire new ones through advertising," the patent reads. "Often, if customer service is inadequate, this fact will not appear in data available to management until many customers have been lost. With so much competition, a customer will often simply go elsewhere rather than take the time to make a complaint."

According to the patent, the technology will read facial expressions and bodily movements to detect varying levels of dissatisfaction from customers. This will then be transmitted to other employees around the store and ping them to come to the cash register in an effort to alleviate the stress of the customers by reducing wait times.