April Fools marks the day when 8 Amazon Go locations will shut down. The locations affected are Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. So did Amazon bite off more than it could chew with these cashier-free high-tech food stores?
Currently, there are 29 Amazon Go locations, primarily located in major cities such as Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. However, the stores were undoubtedly designed for atomized individuals, cutting out nearly all human-to-human interactions while out in public.
According to Geekwire, an Amazon spokesperson said the decision was made after the company assessed a “portfolio of stores and [made] optimization decisions along the way.” The exact reason why these stores were being shuttered wasn’t stated; however, with San Francisco’s rise in crime over the past few years, it’s not surprising that half of the stores closing down are in that city.
Unsurprisingly, two of the stores in Seattle had already been closed before the announcement. Now, Amazon is just making it official. However, this doesn’t mean the company is stopping the Go store rollout. Assumingly, the same spokesperson who confirmed the closures also went on to say, “We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the U.S., and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores.”
With rumored layoffs and an announcement that the tech giant was looking to cut back on remote workers, it’s hard to have faith in Amazon right now. Could it be spreading itself too thin?
Have you tried an Amazon Go store? With more convenience stores using similar technology to cut back on employees, would these new stores quickly be outpaced by long-established retailers investing in new tech? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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