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Amazon is closing all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations and increasing its focus on Whole Foods Market, the company announced Tuesday.
Amazon said it plans to convert some of the locations into Whole Foods Market locations. The company currently operates 57 Amazon Fresh stores and 15 Amazon Go locations, according to The Associated Press.
“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,” the company said in a blog post.
The last day of operation for Fresh and Go locations is February 1.
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“We are also increasing our investment in our physical stores that are resonating with customers. Whole Foods Market, a pioneer and leader in natural and organic foods, has seen strong success since our 2017 acquisition, with over 40% sales growth and expansion to more than 550 locations,” the company said.
“Customers are increasingly choosing Whole Foods Market for both everyday shopping and special occasions, as demonstrated by record-breaking customer traffic and year-over-year comparable store growth that is outpacing the broader industry. Accelerating this growth, we are now planning to invest in opening more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years,” it continued.
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The company said they “plan to introduce new store concepts” in the years ahead, including “a new supercenter physical retail concept” that would include “fresh groceries, household essentials, and general merchandise.”
The shift in focus comes days after reports that Amazon planned to cut thousands of jobs as part of a broader push to eliminate nearly 10% of its corporate workforce.
After initially cutting roughly 14,000 white-collar jobs in October, Amazon is expected to launch a second round of layoffs impacting a similar number of employees, with an overall target of about 30,000 jobs, although the scope may change, according to two sources cited by Reuters.
If fully realized, the cuts would amount to the largest layoffs in Amazon’s history, surpassing the roughly 27,000 jobs the company cut in 2022.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last year he expected the retailer’s corporate workforce to diminish resulting from the efficiencies stemming from using AI.
