Amazon closes bookstores and stores to focus on groceries

Amazon is closing 68 brick-and-mortar book stores and pop-up kiosks in the US and UK to focus on its supermarkets, which include Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, Reuters reported.
“We have decided to close our 4-star Amazon, Books, and Pop-up stores and focus more on Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go and Amazon Style stores and our Just Walk Out technology. we,” an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.
“We remain committed to building great, lasting physical retail technologies and experiences, and we are working closely with our impacted employees to help them find new roles in the industry. Amazon.”
After opening its first bookstore in Seattle in 2015, Amazon experimented with a variety of retail concepts: cashier-free convenience stores, supermarkets, and a so-called “4-star” format in which sells toys, housewares and other goods at prices high rated by customers.
But those business ventures didn’t turn out to be as profitable as the company expected.


Amazon already operates 24 book stores, 33 4-star locations, and nine pop-up kiosks in shopping malls. There are plans to open 16 more 4-star locations.
Instead, the company will now shift its focus to Whole Foods and its own branded supermarkets and grocery stores.
Last week, Amazon announced its first cashierless Whole Foods location in Washington, DC.
Shoppers at the Whole Foods location in the capital’s Glover Park neighborhood no longer need to interact with anyone at the cashier when paying for their groceries.

The company unveiled its Just Walk Out technology, first announced last fall, at the 21,500 square foot site — the first of the two to feature an automated cash register. .
A similar initiative is being planned for Whole Foods in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The technology is already available at select Amazon Fresh grocery stores and in its Go convenience stores.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/02/amazon-to-close-bookstores-and-shops-to-focus-on-groceries/ Amazon closes bookstores and stores to focus on groceries