Amazon to close most Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores in days

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon said this week that it was closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations within days as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.

Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into Whole Foods locations, the Seattle company said in a blog post.

The announcement arrived shortly before Amazon said Wednesday that it was cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs, its second round of mass layoffs in three months.

Late last year, CEO Andy Jassy said job cuts weren’t driven by company finances or AI, but by changes in Amazon's priorities, including the types of businesses it pursues.

“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said Tuesday about closing Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations.

The last day of operation for Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores is Sunday, with the exception of its California locations, which will remain open longer to comply with state requirements, Amazon said.

Since Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods Market in 2017, it's seen a more than 40% sales growth and expansion to more than 550 locations, it said. It plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years.

Shoppers are also increasingly turning to online delivery, Amazon said.

The online retailer now delivers groceries to 5,000 U.S. cities and towns and in many of them, customers can get same-day delivery of fresh produce and other perishables. Based on strong customer feedback, it said it plans to expand its same-day delivery to more places this year.

The company also said Tuesday that plans to open “supercenter” locations that would carry groceries and more. The company didn’t provide any other details.

Amazon opened its first Amazon Go location eight years ago in Seattle, letting shoppers take milk, potato chips or ready-to-eat salads off its shelves and just walk out, rather than stopping at a register. Customers are charged after they leave the store.

The company said that the Amazon Go locations served as “innovation hubs” and the “just walk out” technology is being used in more than 360 third-party locations in five countries.

It said it is expanding the use of that technology within its own operations, with more than 40 North American fulfillment centers using it in breakrooms, helping employees grab meals without checkout delays. More are planned this year.

Amazon introduced its first Amazon Fresh stores in 2020.