Amazon is shutting down all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores, including several locations across the Seattle area.
The company announced Tuesday morning that it will close all 72 of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations nationwide. That includes 11 stores in the Seattle region, among them the original Amazon Go store on 7th Avenue at Amazon’s headquarters—the first place where Amazon rolled out its “Just Walk Out” checkout-free technology back in 2018.
Most Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores will have their final day on this Sunday, February 1. Stores in California will remain open for an additional 45 days due to state labor laws. Amazon also says a small number of Amazon Fresh locations could eventually reopen as new Whole Foods Market stores.
The closures mark the end of a decade-long experiment with Amazon-branded grocery and convenience stores. While Amazon is closing these locations, the company says it is not backing away from grocery altogether. Instead, it plans to focus on expanding Whole Foods and grocery delivery through Amazon.com, including same-day delivery for fresh and perishable items.
Once the closures are complete, Whole Foods will be Amazon’s only physical retail store brand in the United States.
Here is part of the statement from Amazon about the closure of these stores:
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. After a careful evaluation of the business and how we can best serve customers, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores. Customers can continue to shop Amazon Fresh online in available areas for fast and convenient delivery. We’re grateful to our team members for their many contributions over the years and are working whenever possible to help them find roles elsewhere in Amazon, including across our vast operations network, as we make this transition.”
You can read the full post on the About Amazon website.