Amazon.com announced it would shut all of its 19 Amazon Fresh UK convenience food stores, five of which would be rebranded as its Whole Foods Markets chain, just under five years since it moved into the market.
Amazon Fresh was an innovator of “walk out” technology in the UK, allowing shoppers to bypass the checkout when they collected groceries, including its own “by Amazon” brand.
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It announced on Tuesday that it had made the tough call to offer closing the stores following a review of the business and the big growth opportunities in online delivery.
It revealed it was experiencing strong demand for groceries and household essentials from its Amazon.co.uk store, Amazon Fresh online, Whole Foods Market and its online delivery tie-ins with Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland and Gopuff.
Next year it announced that it would launch perishable groceries along with daily necessities and other items on Amazon.co.uk with same-day delivery.
Amazon.com to shut down all its Amazon fresh stores
Aside from growing online grocery, it announced it would rebrand five Amazon Fresh stores to Whole Foods Market, the U.S. chain acquired in 2017.
Amazon.com is an American multinational tech giant involved in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington.
The firm initially began as an internet bookstore, but overtime developed to offer a vast assortment of product categories, known as “The Everything Store”. Amazon is defined as belonging to the Big Tech group, along with Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Meta.
