Amazon has announced it is set to close eight of its Go convenience stores in the US, as it continues to pull away from physical retail to cut costs.
The US ecommerce giant will shut two Go Stores in New York City, two in Seattle and four in San Francisco.
All of the stores will close on 1 April, with the company saying it would work to help the affected employees employment in other roles in other areas of the business.
“Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way,” Amazon spokesperson Jessica Martin said in a statement.
“In this case, we’ve decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco.
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We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the US, and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores.”
Company CEO Andy Jassy has been taking measures to curtail the company’s expenses in its grocery division and in other areas as it struggles with slowing sales and a poor economic outlook.
Amazon said it would lay off as many as 18,000 employees in January, with a number of of those being felt in the grocery business.
Both its warehouse and bricks-and-mortar retail locations have been culled in recent months after a period of rapid expansion which was fuelled by online spend during the pandemic.
Amazon is also temporarily pausing expansion of the Fresh grocery chain until it can find a format that resonates with customers and “where we like the economics,” Jassy said on the earnings call.
Despite these claims, it did open two new locations in London in Monument and Croydon in January.
1 Comment. Leave new
I wonder if theft levels were a contributory factor?