Amazon is closing its grocery stores. Here's what it's building instead

"Amazon Fresh stores served as a physical counterpart to Amazon's online grocery delivery service by the same name while Amazon Go stores offered convenience store staples with a high-tech checkout twist. "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," Amazon wrote in a blog update, adding that it "gathered valuable insights" during their operation."

"With the closures, Amazon is backing off of its long experiment with Fresh and Go physical retail stores, which tested emerging retail technology and pushed its brand into new shopping categories. Amazon Go was known for allowing shoppers to pick up what they wanted and "Just Walk Out" instead of individually scanning items in a traditional checkout counter. That system, which relied on sensors and overhead cameras to track what shoppers purchased and linking it to their accounts digitally."

Amazon will close all Amazon Go convenience stores and Amazon Fresh brick-and-mortar grocery stores, affecting around 70 locations across the two sub-brands beginning in early February. Some closed locations will later reopen as Whole Foods Market stores. Amazon plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods stores over the next few years, leaving Whole Foods as the company's sole physical retail footprint after closures. The closures mark a pullback from experiments that tested emerging retail technology and new shopping categories. Amazon Go used a "Just Walk Out" system with sensors and overhead cameras to track purchases and link them to customer accounts.

Read at Fast Company