Amazon’s experiment with cashierless and Amazon-branded grocery stores is coming to an end on Long Island.
The company confirmed it will close all Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations nationwide as it refocuses its grocery business on Whole Foods Market and online grocery delivery, according to reporting by The Associated Press.
On Long Island, the closures include Amazon Fresh in Oceanside at 3620 Long Beach Road and Amazon Fresh in East Setauket at 4054 Nesconset Highway in the Suffolk Plaza shopping center. Both stores are expected to shut their doors by February 1, unless state-specific requirements delay closures, Amazon said.
Amazon operates 57 Amazon Fresh stores and 15 Amazon Go locations nationwide. In a blog post announcing the move, the company said it had not yet found a scalable business model that made its Amazon-branded physical grocery stores distinct enough to expand widely.
“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.
Customers on Long Island will still be able to shop Amazon Fresh online in eligible areas, with Amazon emphasizing its growing same-day and grocery delivery services. The company currently delivers groceries to about 5,000 U.S. cities and towns, including thousands with same-day options for fresh food and household staples.
Amazon’s grocery strategy has increasingly centered on Whole Foods Market, which it acquired in 2017.
Photo: Dough4872, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
