Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

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ClownLoach
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by ClownLoach »

veteran+ wrote: September 22nd, 2022, 5:32 am Whole Foods under Amazon converted all their baggers into online order pullers (my speculation).

There are NO baggers any longer in the WF stores I visit. There are SO many clerks on the sales floor pulling orders that they are obstructing shoppers from shopping. RIDICULOUS! It is an obstacle course.

:evil:
The order pullers are Amazon Flex workers. They are not regular store workers. This is why they were making statements about how these super low volume Amazon Fresh stores had over 500 employees each. 500, of which maybe two dozen are regularly scheduled employees. The rest are all gig workers. The same Flex employees pick orders at WF and Fresh, and many deliver in their own cars too. I used to see their deliveries happen on a regular basis when I still lived in a major apartment complex and I saw dirty, filthy cars full of trash and junk with customer grocery bags thrown on top. Needless to say I stopped ordering groceries from them.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: October 1st, 2022, 9:10 am
The order pullers are Amazon Flex workers. They are not regular store workers. This is why they were making statements about how these super low volume Amazon Fresh stores had over 500 employees each. 500, of which maybe two dozen are regularly scheduled employees. The rest are all gig workers. The same Flex employees pick orders at WF and Fresh, and many deliver in their own cars too. I used to see their deliveries happen on a regular basis when I still lived in a major apartment complex and I saw dirty, filthy cars full of trash and junk with customer grocery bags thrown on top. Needless to say I stopped ordering groceries from them.
Not just folks pulling orders from Amazon. These folks who order food delivery from food delivery services are also really rolling the dice. I have made many observations of the gig workers picking up food for food delivery services. I will preface it saying the vast majority I see, I do not see these issues. But things I have seen- multiple gig workers picking up food, coughing like crazy while waiting for the order and obviously sick. Lifting up the reusable bag they put the food into to keep it hot as they cough practically coughing right onto it/its handles as they cover their mouth. Gig workers picking up food smoking, touching cigarette then touching your food. Gig workers picking up food in a vehicle that is full of trash/dogs. Your food is on the back seat and closely examined by the dog(s) while in transit. Gig worker who picks up food in the same stop they change a baby's diaper (oh sorry the restroom is closed to customers due to COVID). The chains that have the financial strength to not support and even outright prohibit these food delivery services are very lucky. I would NEVER order from one of these services.

And to think in the 90's our problem with food delivery was the pizza delivery high school kid speeding through the neighborhood at 40 MPH in the 25 zone. At least the kid was employed by the pizza place and just delivering within a couple miles of the location.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by ClownLoach »

This is not just a UK halt of openings. There is now a hiring freeze for all retail store operations positions at Amazon corporate. Such actions usually precede significant changes in business operations.

I know from my many connections that Amazon was paying higher than top dollar to poach managers from Target. Target has decent pay at the ETL level and above even though over the last few years many of the ETL positions have been eliminated. My understanding is that a well paid Executive Team Leader was in the 80K and up range with bonus potential pushing them to 100K or more; as a result Target was able to hire many of these folks who were Store Managers at stores like CVS or Rite Aid or TJ Maxx and pay them much more for a position without the "buck stops here" accountability of being a Store Manager. And they were being offered substantially more money by Amazon for these grocery stores but they still were not having to take Store Manager responsibilities. So the cost of running these money losing Fresh stores must be massive. I can't imagine that they aren't going to just shutter the whole division, maybe keeping a few select locations for Whole Foods.

Then I wonder about the future of Whole Foods itself as their sales continue to decline since they've become a shadow of their former selves.

Or are they just going to sell it all off to a grocery competitor (Albertsons?) who would probably dismiss the entire failed corporate leadership team anyway?

Something is definitely up at Amazon with these retail operations. The article also links to a discussion of the areas where Just Walk Out is actually working - small specialty stores such as airport convenience stores (makes perfect sense) and stadiums/arenas (again it works flawlessly at Climate Pledge Arena - no lines, grab the food or beverage of your choice and just walk out). This technology is great for one to five unit purchases in a limited SKU, multiple facing environment such as a beer cooler or a heated rack of prewrapped snacks like burgers and fries as you see in these types of stores or concession stands. But it is just not even close to being worth the high cost of installation and the poor effectiveness in a large scale/high SKU count environment like the Fresh grocery stores.

Amazon can quietly exit the operation during a time when they have another newsworthy event going that will take precedence over the story of the store closings or divestitures... Maybe during the 2nd Prime Day event they're adding in October?

https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon- ... ns/633352/
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by pseudo3d »

Albertsons buying the entire Amazon food operation (including Whole Foods) doesn't make sense unless Amazon was to invest heavily in Albertsons. Still, if they can get things to work out, they could take some of Cerberus' share and offload all 40 or so of their stores to Albertsons (maybe less depending on divestitures) and sell the European stores.

But even if the transition was slow and orderly, it would probably be a rough road ahead as they transition to a Vons or Safeway or Jewel-Osco or whatever.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Received a very length survey via e-mail about Amazon Fresh in-store. It asked a ton of questions about perceptions on mix, pricing, freshness, store layout, the ease of checkout, quality, pricing... even asked what I thought of their "bag quality" (I guess someone complained about those terrible Made in China paper bags they put into the Dash Carts).

It did NOT even directly address "Just Walk Out" and also did not directly address "Dash Cart."

So I gave them lousy marks for checkout and told them JWO was a fiasco and they need to install self checkouts and accept Contactless payments. I failed to mention that I like the Dash Cart since they didn't ask about it.

I think something is about to happen with these stores.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by Bagels »

I wouldn’t be surprised, and actually anticipate, if Amazon pulls the plug on the Fresh operation, but as of today, Amazon is still actively scouting locations for potential stores. My childhood neighbor owns a prominent shopping center and had a handshake agreement with Amazon to fill a vacancy, but informed me just today that Amazon walked away after they couldn’t reach an agreement on upgrades (specially parking). Other media reports discuss Amazon submitting proposals just in the last week.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: October 10th, 2022, 11:38 pm I wouldn’t be surprised, and actually anticipate, if Amazon pulls the plug on the Fresh operation, but as of today, Amazon is still actively scouting locations for potential stores. My childhood neighbor owns a prominent shopping center and had a handshake agreement with Amazon to fill a vacancy, but informed me just today that Amazon walked away after they couldn’t reach an agreement on upgrades (specially parking). Other media reports discuss Amazon submitting proposals just in the last week.
Big companies sort of tend to run like a truck with the brakes failing, so I wonder if the store development team is clueless as to the operational problems that seem to be occurring, and what appears to me to be profitability issues.

And until the store development team hears otherwise it is full speed ahead... for them.

Fresh & Easy was developing stores well after operations were clearly in the process of being shut down, until Tesco all of a sudden let the s--- hit the fan.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by Romr123 »

Hah! We went into a JWO store (Irvine) in March-ish; haven't been back (actually we're now in Detroit)...I also got a random survey a couple days ago (day after going into a Whole Foods for the first time in 6 months or so) about Amazon Fresh.

The checkout at WFM was weird (the cashier kept stressing that I got my Prime discount, except I don't bother with Prime) so I figured that their DB was wonky or something when I got the survey. Maybe I'll fill it out and see what's up.

Just finished the survey--weirdly constructed and had no relevance given my visit was 6 months ago...don't know what they were trying to elicit.
Last edited by Romr123 on October 11th, 2022, 5:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by veteran+ »

I'm not sure what your source is regarding F&E but that was not the case.

Could be misinformation or misperception.
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Re: Amazon Halts All New Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out Stores

Post by storewanderer »

In the period before Tesco halted expansion they were still looking for sites. They had a land site in Reno and a partially finished store in Sparks which was being finished when they halted expansion.
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