Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical grocery stores as it refocuses its brick-and-mortar strategy around Whole Foods Market and fewer, more scalable store formats.
The company said it has made the “difficult decision” to close the Amazon-branded grocery locations following a strategic review, converting some sites into Whole Foods stores.
Amazon will continue to operate its Amazon Fresh online grocery service.
“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 in a blog post.
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Amazon emphasized it is not exiting physical retail. The company plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next several years and will continue to expand its smaller-format Whole Foods Daily Shop concept, with five additional locations planned by the end of 2026.
The retailer will also continue testing hybrid and experimental formats, including Amazon Grocery locations launched alongside Whole Foods in Chicago and a “store within a store” concept in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
That model combines Whole Foods’ organic assortment with national brands and household essentials sold by Amazon.
Amazon said it is also developing a new mass-market physical store format focused on selection, value and convenience.
The company recently received approval to build its first big-box store in the Chicago suburb of Village Park, Illinois.
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