"Amazon's big high-street experiment is officially over. The company has confirmed that all 19 of its Amazon Fresh stores in the UK will shut down, pulling the plug on its cashier-free shopping concept. The move marks a dramatic retreat on what was once billed as the future of groceries: walk in, grab your bits, stroll out, and let the tech do the rest."
"The first Amazon Fresh outside of the US opened in Ealing Broadway in March 2021, with the promise of revolutionising the weekly shop. But cracks appeared quickly - by 2023, three branches, including that original west London store, had already closed. Despite the novelty of skipping the till, shoppers never quite embraced the format in large enough numbers to make it stick."
"It's not all doom and gloom, though. Amazon has announced that five of the shuttered Fresh sites will get a second life as Whole Foods outlets, the US health food chain it owns. So while the UK's flirtation with till-less tech is ending, at least some of those stores will be selling posh sourdough and almond butter in the near future."
All 19 Amazon Fresh stores in the UK will close, ending the cashier-free shopping experiment that launched in 2021. The first UK Amazon Fresh opened in Ealing Broadway in March 2021, and by 2023 three branches had already closed, including the original store. Shoppers did not adopt the till-less format in sufficient numbers to sustain the concept. Amazon announced that five of the closed Fresh sites will be repurposed as Whole Foods outlets, owned by Amazon. Eighteen of the 19 locations were in London. The specific stores to become Whole Foods have not yet been announced.
Read at Time Out London
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