Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced it is shutting down its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go grocery stores while focusing on the expansion of its Whole Foods Market locations.
The company operates a total of 72 Fresh and Go stores, with most being scheduled for closure on Feb. 1. The California stores will be required to be operational for 45 days due to state labor notification rules.
With the shuttering of the Fresh and Go stores, the company plans to open 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years. Some of the soon-to-be-closed stores will be rebranded under the Whole Foods Market banner, and the company’s smaller Whole Foods Daily Shop format will be expanded from five to 10 locations by the end of the year.
“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,” said the company in an unattributed statement on its website.
Separately, the company recently received approval to construct a 230,000-square-foot “supercenter” in suburban Chicago that will offer groceries and general merchandise. That store, which will be Amazon’s largest brick-and-mortar retail operation, is slated to open in 2027.
Photo by Dough4872 / Wikimedia Commons
