Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

[ClownLoach]

Although I haven't been to an Amazon Fresh lately, looking at pictures online it seems like several on the east coast are permanently closing the service meat and seafood counters:
Warrington, PA
Oceanside, NY
Broomall, PA ("the seafood section closed up")

People are also complaining about the empty shelves at the east coast locations. How much longer will Amazon keep these stores open? Would there be a benefit to Amazon to running the stores at a loss? If these stores were owned by anyone other than Amazon and we were seeing empty shelves, closed service departments, and specialty features like salad bars and hot food bars empty, it would be pretty clear that the stores' closures are impending. But it's possible Amazon has a bigger endgame here beyond just running a few supermarkets. That said, the fact that there haven't been any new openings lately although there are any number of stores fully built out (along with the fact that they seem to be giving up on some of those locations) suggests that the end is near.

They obviously are prolonging the inevitable. Nobody would have noticed if they physically made the meat and seafood counters disappear, took down the signs, and filled the space with something else immediately, heck I don't care if they built a gondola of paper towels and toilet paper. Instead they leave an empty case. They obviously don't care. Your pictures are worse, they show the salad bars and soup bars shut down too. I thought those were the "most profitable segments" of the Whole Foods business?

I think they need to just shutter every store except the two Chicago test stores. Put their spin on it because nobody else cares either. Declare victory to Wall Street. The learning was invaluable and worth the billions of dollars invested. Say they were so overwhelmingly successful that they're moving to delivery only. Besides they already impounded nearly a billion dollars to shut these down and haven't spent it yet, so they could do so in a flash and Wall Street would see no movement in quarterly earnings. Then they could work out deals to mutually part ways at no cost with landlords unhappy to have a dark warehouse in their shopping center. To the public nobody could tell the difference between the "dark store" that's fulfillment only and a completely closed box until a different sign goes up on the building. Wall Street just forgets about the whole thing since it's been so long since they took the charge to shut them down.

The fact is that Amazon Fresh was a huge hit (until they expanded it, changed everything about it, and destroyed it) and can be one again. The stores did great... As local dark store fulfillment centers only running quick deliveries. Otherwise closed to the public. They were the perfect grocery delivery service that would gladly seek out two random tomatoes and three lemons, somehow pulling good ones and packaging them right. Amazon should be looking to lease cheap smaller warehouse spaces in towns and build Amazon Fresh again but in warehouse quality space that costs a fraction of commercial space.

Amazon failed to see they had a winner when they had one because of their lofty and unreasonable expectations. If they could go back in time a bit they would likely made very different decisions.

[storewanderer]

Although I haven't been to an Amazon Fresh lately, looking at pictures online it seems like several on the east coast are permanently closing the service meat and seafood counters:
Warrington, PA
Oceanside, NY
Broomall, PA ("the seafood section closed up")

People are also complaining about the empty shelves at the east coast locations. How much longer will Amazon keep these stores open? Would there be a benefit to Amazon to running the stores at a loss? If these stores were owned by anyone other than Amazon and we were seeing empty shelves, closed service departments, and specialty features like salad bars and hot food bars empty, it would be pretty clear that the stores' closures are impending. But it's possible Amazon has a bigger endgame here beyond just running a few supermarkets. That said, the fact that there haven't been any new openings lately although there are any number of stores fully built out (along with the fact that they seem to be giving up on some of those locations) suggests that the end is near.

Even if a customer did not use these departments, closing them gives the wrong message to the customer. Who is running these stores now? Did Nash Finish let Amazon use some long term EconoFoods management (chain that was corporate Nash Finish and closed stores for years and years) to try and work their magic on these stores?

Also Amazon has to buy $8 billion of goods from Spartan Nash in the next few years so that may be part of why they want to keep these open...

I think closing the stores to the public is the best move here. They are embarrassing themselves with how these stores present to the customer.

Out of stocks have been a major problem for a long time. However the reset/remodeled stores in Chicagoland are fully stocked- they have virtually no out of stocks, and far more SKUs than the unremodeled stores. I assume Nash is supplying them similar to how they'd supply an independent store, and the pricing looks about how an independent store's pricing would look too (WAY too high). I wonder what the credit arrangement they have for Nash taking back outdated goods is, because that is going to be a very relevant topic in 9 months as center store items start expiring due to no volume.

[BillyGr]

I wonder what the credit arrangement they have for Nash taking back outdated goods is, because that is going to be a very relevant topic in 9 months as center store items start expiring due to no volume.

Well, this is Amazon, so maybe their website will have a new clearance page in about 8 months for deliveries only to certain zip code areas?

[ClownLoach]

Although I haven't been to an Amazon Fresh lately, looking at pictures online it seems like several on the east coast are permanently closing the service meat and seafood counters:
Warrington, PA
Oceanside, NY
Broomall, PA ("the seafood section closed up")

People are also complaining about the empty shelves at the east coast locations. How much longer will Amazon keep these stores open? Would there be a benefit to Amazon to running the stores at a loss? If these stores were owned by anyone other than Amazon and we were seeing empty shelves, closed service departments, and specialty features like salad bars and hot food bars empty, it would be pretty clear that the stores' closures are impending. But it's possible Amazon has a bigger endgame here beyond just running a few supermarkets. That said, the fact that there haven't been any new openings lately although there are any number of stores fully built out (along with the fact that they seem to be giving up on some of those locations) suggests that the end is near.

Even if a customer did not use these departments, closing them gives the wrong message to the customer. Who is running these stores now? Did Nash Finish let Amazon use some long term EconoFoods management (chain that was corporate Nash Finish and closed stores for years and years) to try and work their magic on these stores?

Also Amazon has to buy $8 billion of goods from Spartan Nash in the next few years so that may be part of why they want to keep these open...

I think closing the stores to the public is the best move here. They are embarrassing themselves with how these stores present to the customer.

Out of stocks have been a major problem for a long time. However the reset/remodeled stores in Chicagoland are fully stocked- they have virtually no out of stocks, and far more SKUs than the unremodeled stores. I assume Nash is supplying them similar to how they'd supply an independent store, and the pricing looks about how an independent store's pricing would look too (WAY too high). I wonder what the credit arrangement they have for Nash taking back outdated goods is, because that is going to be a very relevant topic in 9 months as center store items start expiring due to no volume.

Amazon will just sue to break the contract with SpartanNash, just like they're taking their landlords who were nice enough to build new stores for them to court. They'll find some bogus technicality the same way they're doing with the landlords, and then settle the lawsuit by parting ways. Even if all of the built stores were open there's no way they'd come close to $8B in sales.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Even if a customer did not use these departments, closing them gives the wrong message to the customer. Who is running these stores now? Did Nash Finish let Amazon use some long term EconoFoods management (chain that was corporate Nash Finish and closed stores for years and years) to try and work their magic on these stores?

Also Amazon has to buy $8 billion of goods from Spartan Nash in the next few years so that may be part of why they want to keep these open...

I think closing the stores to the public is the best move here. They are embarrassing themselves with how these stores present to the customer.

Out of stocks have been a major problem for a long time. However the reset/remodeled stores in Chicagoland are fully stocked- they have virtually no out of stocks, and far more SKUs than the unremodeled stores. I assume Nash is supplying them similar to how they'd supply an independent store, and the pricing looks about how an independent store's pricing would look too (WAY too high). I wonder what the credit arrangement they have for Nash taking back outdated goods is, because that is going to be a very relevant topic in 9 months as center store items start expiring due to no volume.

Much of the Nash Finch corporate failures are of stores bought from other chains: they bought two Smith's stores in Cheyenne, WY (which were divested Albertsons during the Buttrey acquisition) when Kroger bought Fred Meyer (Kroger had a King Soopers landsite in Cheyenne which they built on). Walmart drove those two stores out of business by 2005 or so when they put a Supercenter in Cheyenne.

In Sioux Falls, SD; Econofoods failed with some stores they bought from Sunshine Foods around 2004 or so (an independent out there that was supplied by Affiliated Foods Midwest, now AWG). Off topic, but I went into a Sunshine store long ago on a road trip with my family. It was in some suburb west of Sioux Falls. That store looked like it had seen better days (but better than going to Walmart).

Then there were the Albertsons stores Bag N Save/No Frills (this one is not owned by Loblaw) bought in Omaha back in 2004. Both of those chains were Nash members (acquired by Nash in 2012). 3 out of the 8 they bought in Omaha closed by 2015.

Nash Finch also bought two Albertsons stores in Rapid City, SD; and Scottsbluff, NE and failed with both of them by 2017. I don't know why Supervalu bough those two in 2007 with the Wyoming Albertsons stores. Perhaps they had a gentleman's agreement with Nash Finch.

[storewanderer]

Nash also ran the AVANZA banner in Denver. This was one of the worst hispanic format attempts I ever saw (Raleys attempt to do it on a Food Source in Reno may have been worse, but I think the Raleys effort was more effective from a sales standpoint).

Nash kept the gas station in front of the former Scottsbluff Albertsons open for years after closing the store. There were rumors they were looking to reopen the store, downsize the store, etc. At some point in the past few years they finally sold the gas station to some other operator.

In Scottsbluff, Nash kept the gas station in front of the closed store for years and was operating it. Some independent operates it now, not them. They were using the banner "Family Thrift Center" (no wonder they failed with that banner). Scottsbluff is strange in that it has a Wal Mart and a Target, but has issues with grocery stores. The Safeway there never received a lifestyle remodel and was on Safeway (pre-Albertsons) Denver Division's ill fated "amazin low prices" program where they took badly failing stores, cut a bunch of SKUs, and tried to have everyday low prices; that is one of the few "amazin low prices" stores still open today. It also has a very strange interior now (used to have the standard mid 90's Safeway interior).

[retailfanmitchell019]

Nash also ran the AVANZA banner in Denver. This was one of the worst hispanic format attempts I ever saw (Raleys attempt to do it on a Food Source in Reno may have been worse, but I think the Raleys effort was more effective from a sales standpoint).

Nash kept the gas station in front of the former Scottsbluff Albertsons open for years after closing the store. There were rumors they were looking to reopen the store, downsize the store, etc. At some point in the past few years they finally sold the gas station to some other operator.

In Scottsbluff, Nash kept the gas station in front of the closed store for years and was operating it. Some independent operates it now, not them. They were using the banner "Family Thrift Center" (no wonder they failed with that banner).

Avanza was also present in Omaha and Chicago, doing research.
SpartanNash still operates “Supermercado Nuestra Familia” in Omaha, one of them is in an old Safeway Marina building: https://www.omahasupermercado.com/

Family Thrift Center was the banner used for Nash Finch’s retail in Rapid City (including the Albertsons they bought up there). Nash also had a distribution center in Rapid City (perhaps they had a gentleman’s agreement barring Supervalu from buying that store).

[marketreportblog]

And now this...
https://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/ ... icial-says

My theory is that, since this is coming from a city official, Amazon Fresh probably signed this lease some time ago and (at least based on what's going on elsewhere) does not intend to follow through, or at least does not intend to follow through at this moment. I would not be surprised if in a few months we hear Amazon Fresh is out and someone else is in.

Funny too that Lidl was previously interested, and then pulled out. At this time it looks like the trajectories of Amazon Fresh and Lidl are fairly similar, although Lidl continues to open new stores...

[J-Man]

I went into the Pasadena (CA) Amazon Fresh this afternoon (mainly to use my 20% off of $50 coupon that expired today.) I hadn't shopped there in a while and there are big changes underway. They have already removed any vestiges of the "Just Walk Out" technology. No more entrance gates, no more dedicated checkstand, etc. Instead, they've added Dash carts and a number of self-checkout lanes. They're also adding a doughnut shop (looks like they will have Krispy Kremes, but it's not a Krispy Kreme store). It looks like there will be other changes as there's a "grand reopening" schedule for a few weeks from now.

I think I actually prefer the Dash carts to JWO. You get a running total of what you've put in your cart (which is very helpful when you're trying to hit a target like the $50 I needed to use my coupon.) My receipt was emailed immediately.

[ClownLoach]

I went into the Pasadena (CA) Amazon Fresh this afternoon (mainly to use my 20% off of $50 coupon that expired today.) I hadn't shopped there in a while and there are big changes underway. They have already removed any vestiges of the "Just Walk Out" technology. No more entrance gates, no more dedicated checkstand, etc. Instead, they've added Dash carts and a number of self-checkout lanes. They're also adding a doughnut shop (looks like they will have Krispy Kremes, but it's not a Krispy Kreme store). It looks like there will be other changes as there's a "grand reopening" schedule for a few weeks from now.

I think I actually prefer the Dash carts to JWO. You get a running total of what you've put in your cart (which is very helpful when you're trying to hit a target like the $50 I needed to use my coupon.) My receipt was emailed immediately.

I drove past Irvine today on the freeway and they had construction storage dumpsters set up. That store never had JWO tech.

I liked the Dash carts, but the new Dash 2.0 carts they are rolling out are illogical in design with no thoughts to usability and ergonomics. The original Dash cart was great, just toss item in cart. The new one mounts a scanner under the handle creating an unnatural motion and probably enabling shrink. Someone needs to remind Amazon that the more unnatural they make the process, the more problems they'll have getting customers to adopt it. They had a working prototype that made sense and was fun to use, and they're going to dumb it down to a rolling self checkout apparatus instead of the slick device that would understand you put a bag of bulk potatoes in the cart and then determine the weight difference to compute the price.