Amazon Kills Go and Fresh Stores to Focus on Whole Foods

Amazon announced on Tuesday that it is closing all of its brick-and-mortar Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores across the United States to pivot toward same-day grocery delivery and expand its profitable Whole Foods Market footprint.

The End of Amazon’s Cashierless Convenience Experiment

The tech giant officially announced the shutdown of its proprietary convenience and grocery brands. These physical locations previously served as the primary testing grounds for Amazon’s cashierless Just Walk Out technology. The system, which tracks customer selections to bypass traditional checkout lines, is not being abandoned entirely; instead, Amazon is shifting its strategy to license this technology to third-party venues, such as concession stands in sports stadiums.

“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company shared in an official blog post. This strategic shift will have no impact on customers who rely on Amazon for online grocery deliveries.

The Economic Hurdle of Physical Retail

The decision to divest from these branded retail locations aligns with Amazon’s ongoing reduction of its physical footprint over the past few years. Following a wave of store closures in 2024, an Amazon spokesperson previously admitted that the company struggled to make the economics work due to high lease costs. Ultimately, the financial model for the standalone Go and Fresh stores proved unsustainable at scale.

Doubling Down on the Whole Foods Brand

Despite shuttering its self-branded storefronts, Amazon is not retreating from physical retail. Instead, the company is leveraging the strong brand equity of Whole Foods Market, which has resonated far better with consumers than the Amazon Go or Fresh brands. Amazon plans to launch more than 100 new Whole Foods locations over the coming years, capitalizing on a 40% sales increase and an expansion to 550 stores since acquiring the organic grocer in 2017.

Introducing Whole Foods Market Daily Shop

As part of this expansion, Amazon will roll out more Whole Foods Market Daily Shop locations. These smaller-format stores focus on convenience and grab-and-go meals, effectively replicating the core value proposition of Amazon Go but under a highly trusted consumer brand. While the underlying corporate machinery remains the same, shoppers are historically much more receptive to purchasing fresh meals under the Whole Foods banner.