Everyone Say Goodbye to Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores

Did you hear about Amazon Fresh stores closing down at the end of this week? Like, for good? Because I didn’t. And it’s not because I live under a rock. Amazon just announced the closures yesterday, January 27. And the last day for most Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations will be Sunday, Feb. 1. (California stores will stay open 45 more days thanks to our state labor notification requirements…because that’s how we roll here in CA, folks. Thank you, labor laws.)

They’re closing all Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores? Do we know why?

Yes, all of them. Officially, Amazon is claiming it wants to focus on their main money maker in the grocery space, which is Whole Foods. They’ll be expanding Whole Foods stores to more than 100 new locations over the next several years (so they say) and converting some of their former Amazon Fresh locations into Whole Foods outlets.

Unofficially, we can speculate about this decision all we want. Clearly Amazon Fresh storefronts weren’t turning out to be a profitable enterprise, or they wouldn’t be closing them. Also, this isn’t the first time Amazon opened a series of brick-and-mortar stores only to eventually close them down—they did this with their bookstores back in 2022, too. 

Will Amazon Fresh still exist online? 

Yes, actually. Their online stores will remain operational for home delivery through Amazon Prime—and you don’t need to pay for a Prime account to use that service. (Prime just gives you quicker shipping and other benefits.) Only their physical storefronts are closing down.  

You know, I don’t think I know anyone who’s ever shopped at Amazon Fresh? Have you? 

Yep! Only a handful of times, though. They have a lot of locations in Los Angeles; I actually didn’t realize they weren’t more of a national chain until recently. Their storefronts are very clean, organized, and aesthetically appealing… that being said:

Their checkout systems can be really daunting. Amazon has tried a number of different cashierless checkout options with these stores, from “Just Walk Out” technology to smart Dash Carts that scan items as you shop. They seem to vary by location. My closest Amazon Fresh has both self-checkout and actual humans, so it behaves more like a regular grocery store. But the cashierless concept behind Amazon Fresh, especially any marketing around using the Amazon app to shop in-store, probably pushed many consumers away from wanting to shop there in the first place. It’s confusing! 

Honestly, though, I don’t even think it’s the cashierless checkout system that did this brand in. Let’s be real: People don’t shop at Amazon Fresh because they don’t want to give Amazon money when they don’t have to. Amazon dominates so many consumer markets because of their lower prices. But take free shipping out of the equation, and what do you have? Plenty of grocery stores, like Walmart and Aldi and Food4Less, are physically closer, sometimes even cheaper, and don’t require you to download an extra app just to buy chips. 

Still, with Whole Foods expanding and Amazon Fresh delivery still intact, this doesn’t sound like the nail in the coffin of Jeff Bezos’ foray into the grocery industry…

No, unfortunately not. Since they acquired Whole Foods back in 2017 (for 13.7 billion dollars, in case you wanted to feel a little sick to your stomach), Amazon has been doing just fine with Whole Foods alone. Revenue has been growing since the acquisition. 

But I’m still going to take this closure as a good sign, I guess. Not because Jeff Bezos failed yet again to launch an Amazon storefront chain, but because people decided they didn’t want to shop there. That gives me hope. 

With 57 Amazon Fresh and 15 Amazon Go stores locations closing down, how many people are out of jobs? 

Thousands of workers are expected to be impacted, but Amazon isn’t disclosing any official numbers. I’m watching Reddit threads to hear about the layoffs from the actual workers. As much as I’d like to see Amazon having to scale back as a win, it’s a horrible economy for more people to be suddenly out of jobs. But I won’t get on my soap box about that right now. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!