Amazon Fresh stores are running 75% off sales as they approach their final day of opening.
Signage at the Amazon Fresh store in Monument said the store would be “closing permanently” on 19 December at 6pm.
Closures at Amazon’s 19 UK Fresh stores commenced this month, with the final opening day depending on the individual store.
Amazon confirmed to The Grocer all of the stores would be closed before the end of this year. Five will reopen as Whole Foods Market stores.
Amazon in September announced it was to close all 19 of its Amazon Fresh physical convenience stores, the decision coming less than five years after it opened the first in Ealing, which was the company’s first physical retail site outside North America.
The stores’ main USP was their Just Walk Out technology, which allowed customers to enter, pick their products and leave (having swiped their app or card at a gate somewhere along the journey). The technology, Amazon said at the time of launch, was primed to “push the state of the art forward”, to “reimagine the in-store shopping experience” and “redefine retail”.
However, the ambition – at least in a convenience store setting – appears not to have been realised. As then global grocery stores chief at Amazon, Tony Hoggett, who led the move to strip Just Walk Out tech out of US stores last year, said in an interview with The Grocer in 2023: “Not everything you do in grocery needs reinventing.”
Around 250 people had been employed in Amazon’s UK physical stores. Five of the 19 stores are to be converted to the Whole Foods Market brand.
Amazon said it intended to focus on growth of its online grocery offering. By early next year, the company says more than 80% of UK Prime members – of which there are a reported 13.7 million – will be able to shop at least one of its grocery partners, namely Morrisons, Iceland, Co-op, and Gopuff.
It will also add perishable groceries to the “millions of everyday essentials” already available on Amazon.co.uk for same-day delivery.
“This service will offer customers fresh grocery items including fresh produce, dairy, meat, seafood, baked goods, and frozen foods alongside everyday household essentials, electronics, and other products – all within their Amazon.co.uk basket and delivered within hours,” the company said.
Amazon also plans to more than double the number of UK Prime members who have access to three or more online grocery delivery options through its supermarket partners.
The moves come alongside its £40bn investment in the UK over the next three years, which includes building four new fulfilment centres and new delivery stations nationwide.
No comments yet