Dive Brief:
- Amazon will shutter its Amazon Go convenience store in Woodland Hills, California, on Feb. 26, a company spokesperson confirmed to C-Store Dive.
- Amazon’s spokesperson declined to share why the company is closing this store, only noting that it’s being shut down after a portfolio assessment. The store is one of Amazon Go’s roomier suburban formats, which aim to reach shoppers located outside the downtown areas standard Amazon Go stores target.
- Amazon has shuttered roughly half of its Amazon Go stores over the past three years as the e-commerce company has struggled to build and maintain its brick-and-mortar presence.
Dive Insight:
At its peak in early 2023, Amazon operated about 30 Go convenience stores across Washington, California, New York and Illinois. Then Amazon began shuttering Go stores as a cost-cutting measure, most notably closing eight stores at once — two in Seattle, two New York City and four in San Francisco — that April.
Today, Amazon operates 16 Go stores, according to the spokesperson. Despite the closures, the spokesperson emphasized that Amazon will continue to invest in its Go convenience stores since physical retail remains a key part of its strategy.
The Woodland Hills store will close its doors next month after three years in business. This location offers a broader selection of grab-and-go food and drinks compared to standard Amazon Go stores. It also features Amazon Go’s made-to-order kitchen, which offers freshly prepared food, including breakfast items, hot and cold deli sandwiches, salads and wraps. Customers can also get a variety of specialty beverages and on-tap coffee, kombucha and soda, as well as visit a Pinkberry fro-yo station.
All 10 employees of the store will be let go, effective March 10, according to a California WARN notice processed last week. The spokesperson said Amazon is working to identify new roles within the company for these team members, including at other nearby Amazon operations sites.
Amazon Fresh, the company’s grocery brand, recently eclipsed the 50-store mark after a shaky first few years while Whole Foods, the specialty grocer Amazon acquired in 2017, has steadily grown in recent years.
As its brick-and-mortar efforts have faltered, Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology — the backbone of its stores — has grown in the broader retail sphere. Amazon continues to offer this technology as a service to third-party retailers, and has added it to over 200 locations across the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada, the spokesperson said.
