Three stores in the city have now closed, and other planned openings across the U.S. still delayed for Amazon.
Amazon’s retail concepts — Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh — have both been struggling with closures and opening delays, with the latest Go closure announced recently in Seattle.
A third Amazon Go location in Seattle took in its last customers Friday, as reported by the Seattle Times. Over the last few months, a handful of Amazon Go stores have closed and other Amazon retail locations that were supposed to have opened have not, leaving landlords in the lurch.
The recent Seattle closing was on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Marion Street in downtown Seattle. The store opened in 2018 and was the second of Amazon Go’s cashier-less convenience stores in the U.S. Two other Amazon Go locations in Seattle shut down earlier in the year.
In addition to the Seattle closings, two Amazon Go stores in New York City and four in San Francisco also shuttered recently.
Then there are the stores which have yet to begin. A landlord in Pennsylvania and Amazon are involved in a lawsuit after plans for an Amazon Fresh in Pennsylvania was delayed. Development on Fresh locations in Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida, New York, and New Jersey have also been paused this year.
Amazon’s strategy of taking over grocery market share has struggled, especially in the past years. In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote a letter to investors stating that the company is working hard to identify and build the right mass grocery format for Amazon scale — but he acknowledged that the current strategy hasn’t been working.
Recently, New York wealth management firm Bernstein called Amazon too unfocused and said the company is missing out on opportunities in its core business. Bernstein’s Mark Shmulik added that when it comes to Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Go, Amazon needs to “make a call on physical grocery.”
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