Dive Brief:
- Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Go convenience store chain as well as its Amazon Fresh grocery brand, the tech giant announced on Tuesday.
- Amazon plans to convert some of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores to its Whole Foods Market grocery brand. The company said it hasn’t “yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion” among Amazon-branded physical stores.
- Amazon Go took the c-store industry by storm when it debuted its frictionless sites in 2018. The tech-forward c-store chain has faced more operational challenges and store closures than it has successes in recent years.
Dive Insight:
The demise of both Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh marks the end of a worrying past few years for Amazon’s physical retail presence. Amazon Go, which had roughly 30 locations at its peak in early 2023, shuttered over half of its locations in recent years as a cost cutting measure. Although Amazon Fresh surpassed the 60-store mark in 2024, the grocery chain was forced to pause the rollout of all new stores in 2023 due to economic challenges.
Less than a year ago, C-Store Dive reported that Amazon was merging the corporate teams behind Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh, resulting in layoffs on both sides of the business.
Amazon Go initially served as an innovation showcase for the company’s Just Walk Out technology, which today has become a third-party solution used at all sorts of retail outlets around the world. In Tuesday’s announcement, Amazon said the customer impact of this tool “has been transformative.”
However, as it expanded Just Walk Out, Amazon continued to close its Go c-stores at a concerning clip. When it revealed it was shuttering a California site around this time last year, a spokesperson said that the company would still continue to invest in its Go convenience stores since physical retail remained a key part of its strategy.
That’s no longer the case, as Amazon Go is officially shutting down after eight years in business. In Tuesday’s announcement, Amazon said it’s working to help impacted team members find new roles elsewhere at the company. Amazon did not disclose how many employees have been affected.
Amazon added that it will continue testing “new physical store experiences” similar to its small-format Whole Foods Market concept in the coming years.
“Through it all, our goal remains: to make grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable for customers,” the company said.
