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Amazon To Shut Down All Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh Stores (wsj.com) 42

Posted by msmash from the strategy-shift dept.
Amazon is closing all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores in a shift to focus on its online same-day delivery service and new big-box retail stores. From a report: The e-commerce giant said Tuesday that some of its shuttered Amazon-branded brick-and-mortar stores would be converted into Whole Foods Market locations. Amazon said its branded stores failed to deliver the right economic model and distinctive customer experience necessary for large-scale expansion.

Amazon's same-day delivery service for groceries is currently available in more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns. The company said it plans to expand the service to more communities in 2026 but didn't specify where. Amazon said it planned to open over 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years.
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Amazon To Shut Down All Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh Stores More

Amazon To Shut Down All Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh Stores

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  • Creepy (Score:3)

    by Himmy32 ( 650060 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @12:56PM (#65952500)

    Getting at home deliveries and expanding Whole Foods seems a lot more reasonable than trying to push the just walk out creepiness. No surprised that it wasn't a winning idea.

    Also Amazon as a brand has a negative connotation to most people, but they win out over their competitors because of their shipping rates and speeds. But in the brick and mortar space that has other options that are as equally convenient and less creepy, not surprising that they aren't keeping up.

    • Re:Creepy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @01:05PM (#65952522)
      The worst part about the delivery is the quality of the fruits, veggies, and meat are terrible. So, unless you are making soup, dont buy perishables from them.
      • I wouldn’t want anyone to pick my produce other than me. A store employee is incentivized to get rid of the worst of the lot that no one in store would choose themselves unless that was the last of it available, and maybe not even then.

        Amazon's idea is reasonable, but the technology isn't there yet so the implementation doesn't come close to what was envisioned. The idea of a grocery store where you don't have to stand in line is one that most consumers want, but until it just works no one wants to

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        I have a monthly subscription and I have also found the fruits to often be sour, the vegetables frequently wilted, and some perishables to be expired or near expiration.

        I just don't get what the problem is.

        • I just don't get what the problem is.

          Jeff Bezos is a piece of shit and he and Amazon enshittify everything.

      • I never trust anyone to pick produce or meat|seafood for me, I've seen those instacart weenies at the local markets and they rush around the store just grabbing stuff without regard for quality, only speed to fill the basket and meet their quotas.

    • I wish you had said more in support of your Subject. As one word it might be vacuous, and you didn't really flesh out your intention in your post. Perhaps both 'problems' due to the rush to FP?

      Me? I actually prefer self-service. I'm not trying to cheat the store and I'm meticulous about getting it exactly right, but I like the lower pressure. I think it's mostly the lack of an imminent feeling of someone waiting because of me. I've never visited an Amazon shop of any sort (and my second and final Amazon pur

      • Re:Creepy? But don't you prefer self service? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Himmy32 ( 650060 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @02:47PM (#65952770)

        Amazon Go's Just Walk Out combines cameras and RFID tags combined with a fleet of Indian contractors watching every movement in the store of every thing you pick up, look at, and put back is the creepy part combined with machine learning algorithms on your behavior. This determines the items in the cart linked to a payment method.

        This is in comparison to other retailers self service such as scan your own with a phone or self scan terminals. Self service can be convenient, undoubtedly. Having every moment observed and analyzed, creepy.

        This taken farther in other countries like Japan where there are stores without human employees that all service is just walk out style technology. Here is an example YouTube video of a store in Japan. [youtube.com]

        People are free to have a difference of option on convenience versus desire for privacy. Having every action monitored and analyzed feels very creepy to me, maybe it doesn't to you.

        • Having every action monitored and analyzed feels very creepy to me, maybe it doesn't to you.

          Eh. It's like having a wife.

          Anyways, I too was interested in their methods. From the clip's description:
          "
          No registration or anything required, doesn't seem to be using any facial recognition either, as we had face masks on.
          It also worked out we wanted to check out together and put it in one purchase.

          I find it interesting you can buy alcohol at a staff free store, but I suppose it's similar to an alcohol vending machine.
          "

          ...and...

          "@NathanHockridge
          5 years ago
          They never scan anything. The whole store i

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            Thanks for the information though this may be a case where I would have been happier to remain ignorant. Gee, Amazon is even more evil than I thought.

            At the time of my final Amazon purchase I only knew the website somehow smelled evil. Reeked worse than the big dog's m0e, as we used to joke in ancient days. No idea how bad it could get.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Himmy32 ( 650060 )
            The identification isn't against a biometrics, but against a "payment method". So the activity is still tracked to an individual or set of individuals. So it doesn't have to pick up a face, as long as you don't magically appear in the middle of the store, as it can track a set of bodies from scanning in the payment method until leaving. And if it runs into trouble the team of Indian contractors can assign the actions to the identity.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by SumDog ( 466607 )
        It's the reason I always bag my own groceries. I just prefer doing it myself and I do a better job. I can put things in bags specifically based on where they're going to go.

      • I actually prefer self-service. I'm not trying to cheat the store and I'm meticulous about getting it exactly right, but I like the lower pressure. I think it's mostly the lack of an imminent feeling of someone waiting because of me.

        That makes no sense. The people in line behind you are not waiting because of you. The people waiting for you to find the barcode however, are.

    • Probably just weren't making money. Not much demand for more grocery stores unless you have lower prices and lose money. And it seems like Amazon wasn't taking food stamps, which is a big part of most groceries' business.
      • I'd say that's true, at least the store nearest to where I live. That specific store replaced a well known chain supermarket when Amazon cut a deal with the developer [rick caruso] to push out the big chain and take over the space. Even so, it took over 2 years to remodel the former grocery store into a Fresh store, and in the past 5-6 years I've never seen the parking lot more than half filled, as opposed to the past market where it was overflowing almost every day of the week. Truly the Fresh store genera

    • Getting at home deliveries and expanding Whole Foods seems a lot more reasonable

      Whole Foods stores also service the local online Amazon Fresh orders. I assume brick and mortar Amazon Fresh stores are alternatives to building a Whole Foods somewhere? Maybe a full sized Whole Foods is not warranted? Just calling them Whole Foods or some derivative (Whole Foods Express or something?) would seem to simplify the branding.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Getting at home deliveries and expanding Whole Foods seems a lot more reasonable than trying to push the just walk out creepiness. No surprised that it wasn't a winning idea.

      Also Amazon as a brand has a negative connotation to most people, but they win out over their competitors because of their shipping rates and speeds. But in the brick and mortar space that has other options that are as equally convenient and less creepy, not surprising that they aren't keeping up.

      For years supermarkets here in the UK have had "scan as you shop". That is you carry a portable code scanner that you scan products as you put them in your trolley, then scan a barcode on a till to pay for it as you leave. It's a trivial matter to link it to an account where you can have a card set up for automatic payment on exit (even if you need to scan a barcode on exit)... the thing is that few people use Scan and Go to begin with and even fewer have asked for it to be more automated.

  • No one wanted to be intensely surveilled while shopping? Never would have thought. Sure, grocery stores today have tons of cameras (look up!) but typically they only use the footage when they need it as evidence to convict a shoplifter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Sure, grocery stores today have tons of cameras (look up!) but typically they only use the footage when they need it as evidence to convict a shoplifter.

      Pretty sure someone is watching the security system in the office, soon to be cut over to AI I suspect...

    • No one wanted to be intensely surveilled while shopping? Never would have thought. Sure, grocery stores today have tons of cameras (look up!) but typically they only use the footage when they need it as evidence to convict a shoplifter.

      Hold on there, step back, and think about your loyalty card at the grocery store. That is far deeper surveillance -- of excuse me, marketing -- nope, again sorry, enhancing your customer experience and saving you money -- than the cameras. And it has been going on for many decades. They are so old they once were physical cards, rather than typing in your phone number.

      Did you think the inkjet looking coupons from the store matched your buying habits by accident? :-)

      And with today's prices these loyalty

  • Too bad, was a convenient returns location (Score:3)

    by ugen ( 93902 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @01:15PM (#65952554)

    Too bad about the Amazon Fresh, I used it for years as a convenient Amazon returns drop off location.
    Of course never bought anything, as it was substantially overpriced with the same stock as the nearby Walmart (and the panopticon check out didn't instill confidence).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      The e-commerce giant said Tuesday that some of its shuttered Amazon-branded brick-and-mortar stores would be converted into Whole Foods Market locations.

      You can return Amazon purchases to Whole Foods markets...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        My favorite local Whole Foods closed their in-store bar and replaced it with a returns desk a few years ago. So disappointing.

      • UPS stores as well. You don't even have to box it. just initiate the return on amazon and drop off the item with the return code to UPS and the'll box it up and ship it for you for free. Khols stores also used to take returns, but i'm not sure if that's still a thing. I thought I read something somewhere that partnership was ending.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Too bad about the Amazon Fresh, I used it for years as a convenient Amazon returns drop off location.
      Of course never bought anything, as it was substantially overpriced with the same stock as the nearby Walmart (and the panopticon check out didn't instill confidence).

      Here in the UK they've partnered with the supermarket chain Morrisons... so occasionally put an item in my basket that is sold by Morrisons without realising it and when I go to buy it there is usually a deal breaker like "you need to add another £34 to this basket" where I don't want to buy 40 quid worth of shit, I just want the one item I have selected but there is literally no way to get past this and few other sellers of the item so it usually ends up with me saying "fuck it, I'll just drive to Bo

  • There is no need for those Orwellian nightmares to exist.

  • First Amazon crushes brick-and-mortar stores, then decides to get into the bricks-and-mortar store business?

    Beyond convenient return locations, this never made sense, and now they'll convert many of the shuttered locations into Whole Foods stores that will make equally wonderful return depots for online purchases.

    • They could probably do okay with small corner stores/liquor stores, that also take returns.

    • It goes a level deeper. The Go/Fresh stores are competing with other retailers in the area. They put the other retailers under pressure by giving free coffee with a $5 purchase in the AM. I never go to the Starbucks because there's a swarm of young professionals waiting for some poor tattooed trans pincushion to take their money and shout their names. I don't have time for that transaction. Free coffee at Amazon. But the Go store has been closed since Thursday. The left over food is rotting on the shelves.
      A

    • First Amazon crushes brick-and-mortar stores,

      This side of the pond it's been kind of funny to watch. I remember the first time round when Amazon launched with great fanfare about how they were going to crush these provincial rubes with the power of ALGORITHMS, only to discover that they were slamming into massive and brutally competitive and efficient existing logistics networks for groceries. The old big supermarkets have been doing home delivery on and off since before Amazon existed and in the current in

  • AI (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @02:50PM (#65952784)
    The most telling thing about this is it means Amazon is giving up on the just walk out AI. They had always presented it as a matter of collecting enough data and they'd eventually be able to automate the order tracking instead of humans reviewing the store footage. This implies they were never able to solve that.
    • It never was AI (Artificial Intelligence), instead it was AI (Actually India) I can see the sweat shop now, just rows upon rows of indians watching security cams and ticking off the items you take with you. I wonder how much other "AI" is "Actually India"
      • Good to hear what else it was called. I heard the joke from the area there it also might of been the just walk out "AI" was maybe also had another saying it "doesn't work Absent of India"

        Or maybe it also would be "There's another tech joke, that "AI" stands for "Absent Indians" – the gag being that the "AIs" you interact with in the world are actually low-waged Indian workers pretending to be bots." https://pluralistic.net/2022/0... [pluralistic.net]

        Also "So much AI turns out to be low-waged people in a call

    • It's an indicator of how other AI automation efforts will go. Lots of companies will pour lots of money into AI solutions that are auto-magic. But soon they'll find out that there's a reason they need people.

      So maybe we don't need to fear the AI unemployment apocalypse just yet.

    • All of the shelf cameras, shelf scales (for weight) etc in my mind were all just goofy experiments, proof of concept, letting the hardware folks play around. Amazon had cash to burn (reference FirePhone and everything Alexa)

      The meaningful change was that it was a Members Only corner store. Basically like a Costco meets 7Eleven. The grocery industry rate for "inventory shrinkage" aka theft is something like 3% for grocery stores. Costco is something like 0.2%. The primary reason is that you need to sh

  • What a drag. Sorry to see these stores go. They were a great training ground for sleight-of-hand magicians.

  • They built one out here and it was finished but not stocked for several months. When it was operational, we visited the store. The prices were expensive and the selection was limited.
    I don't know whose "brain fart" these stores were but the basic execution of the store was flawed. It allowed no perceptible value.

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