Amazon Fresh stores were closed Tuesday to make the announcement. The locations will reopen this week, but will close permanently on Feb. 1.
SEATTLE — Customers showed up to Amazon Fresh stores in Seattle on Tuesday only to find them closed, catching shoppers off guard as the company announced it would shutter all of its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go physical locations nationwide.
The stores will reopen Wednesday but will close permanently on Sunday, Feb. 1, giving customers and employees only days to adjust to the news.
This story continues below.
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Tony Del Mundo and his wife Jessica took the bus from Chinatown with a wagon and their two dogs to the Amazon Fresh store off Aurora Avenue, about a 12-mile trip that took roughly an hour. When they arrived, they discovered the doors locked.
“What? This is crazy,” Jessica said.
Tony said they had considered going to another Amazon Fresh location on 23rd and Jackson but preferred this one. “My wife likes this one because of the hot food,” he said. “The prices here are a lot better than Safeway and lot of the other places. This is the cheapest place to get spam. We’re from Hawaii, and it’s cheaper than in Hawaii.”
At the same Aurora Avenue location, an Amazon delivery driver arrived to drop off a package only to discover the doors locked. A contractor who had planned to work on the sprinkler system was equally surprised to learn of the sudden closure
The abrupt shutdown marks an unexpected end to Amazon’s years-long push into physical grocery retail, a strategy the company had championed to compete directly with traditional supermarkets.
“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,” Amazon said in a blog post announcing the decision.
Amazon said it will focus on its grocery delivery, Whole Foods Market with plans to open up over 100 new Whole Foods over the next few years. Some shuttered Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations will be converted into Whole Foods Market stores.
“Some of my friends call Whole Foods ‘whole paycheck.’ I didn’t think that was the case with this store. I hope the replacement is just as affordable,” Kevin Moy said outside the Amazon Fresh in Seattle Central District. He moved to the neighborhood last year and chose his apartment because of it’s proximity to the Amazon Fresh. The nearest large grocery store is a Grocery Outlet that’s about a 24 minute walk away.
“I’m super bummed. I hope there will be a replacement,” he said.
The company will continue offering Amazon Fresh online delivery in certain areas.
Amazon Fresh stores in WA closing:
Factoria: 3901 Factoria Square Mall SE in Bellevue
Seattle: 13201 Aurora Ave N in Seattle
Seattle: 2301 S. Jackson St. in Seattle
Amazon Go stores in WA closing:
Bellevue: 10819 4th St. NE in Bellevue
Mill Creek: 13209 39th Ave SE in Mill Creek
Puyallup: 15518 Meridian Ave in Puyallup
Puyallup: 17710 Canyon Road E in Puyallup
Seattle: 1122 Madison St in Seattle
Seattle: 300 Boren Ave N in Seattle
Seattle: 2131 7th Ave in Seattle
Seattle: 1906 Terry Ave in Seattle
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