Amazon is making its grocery priorities clear, and they no longer revolve around you walking into a physical store. The company has announced it will shut down Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores in the US, pushing customers toward online grocery shopping and delivery, while doubling down on the Whole Foods brand.
The move marks a quiet but decisive end to Amazon’s long experiment with running its own standalone grocery chains. Amazon Fresh supermarkets and Amazon Go convenience stores were meant to showcase cashierless tech and a modern retail experience. However, Amazon now admits the model never quite worked the way it hoped.
Why Amazon is pulling the plug on physical grocery stores
In its announcement, Amazon said the Fresh and Go stores did not deliver “a distinctive customer experience with a clear path to scale.” In simple terms, the stores were expensive to run and did not attract enough loyal shoppers to justify expanding them nationwide.
At the same time, Amazon stressed this is not an exit from groceries altogether. Online grocery shopping through Amazon Fresh will continue in markets where it is already available, and the company plans to expand same-day grocery delivery to more cities. So Amazon wants customers ordering groceries on their phones, not pushing carts through Amazon-branded aisles.
The other big winner here is Whole Foods. Amazon says it will open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores in the coming years, including smaller formats like Whole Foods Market Daily Shop, which focus on prepared foods and everyday essentials.
Some former Amazon Fresh locations will even be converted into Whole Foods stores, effectively folding one strategy into the other. Amazon framed the shift as a response to how people actually shop today, with more demand for delivery and fewer trips to grocery stores.
The message is clear. If you want Amazon groceries, the company would much rather deliver them to your door or sell them under the Whole Foods name than keep running its own retail brands.
