Citing the lack of a strong market for its physical stores, Amazon announced today it will shutter its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations, including roughly two dozen in California, and focus instead on its growing grocery delivery service.
“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experiencewith the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” according to a statement from the company. “After a careful evaluation of the business and how we can best serve customers, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores.”
The decision will impact the Amazon Fresh store at Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue in Long Beach.
Also closing are stores in Cerritos, Encino, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Torrance, Northridge, Pasadena, Woodland Hills, Ladera Heights, Huntington Beach and Irvine. Amazon Go convenience stores are located in Whittier and Torrance.
It was unclear which stores would be converted into Whole Foods markets. According to Amazon, the company is planning to open 100 Whole Foods locations nationally over the next several years.
“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,” according to the company. “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.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to show the Long Beach store is on Spring Street, not South Street.