4 ms·

Is Amazon Go stores sticking around? It is confusing when they say "all physical stores" are closing, but even the Amazon Go ones?

meowkit 5y ago
Amazon Go is being absorbed/rebranded under Amazon Fresh, which is supposedly like Whole Foods lite/their delivery service. Might be wrong, this is just my observation in SEA/what I recall.
- Breza 5y ago
  The local Whole Foods closed years ago due to a rat infestation and a lease dispute. They just reopened as the first "just walk out" Whole Foods. I imagine a lot of the Amazon Go energy will be going into more of the existing Whole Foods stores. If I worked at Whole foods right now, I'd be updating my resume for the day the robots come.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  I was an intern at Amazon in Seattle in 2008 and was ordering groceries and beer from Fresh. It looks like it's a pretty big deal now in most major US cities, but I remember being surprised that year after year after year it seemed to just.... continue existing. Not going huge, but also not getting canned. On the other hand, maybe that's the real lesson of Grocery Gateway and "dot coms" who tried to do a hard burn on this back in the day— it's a really hard thing to get right, and getting it right requires an extremely long horizon of slow and steady growth.
  - mabbo 5y ago
    For a long time, Fresh did not directly make a profit. That wasn't it's purpose. The goal of Amazon fresh was to say "hey UPS! Looks like we can do deliveries all by ourselves without you! Give us a better deal or we'll become your competitor". Because all those deliveries were on Amazon trucks. Then one day Amazon's delivery needs scaled beyond what UPS was willing to take on. And so Amazon Logistics became a major thing.
    - xdeepak81 5y ago
      Amazon logistics actually started first in India because India was an unorganized section and there was no other company that can support Amazon. Almost every startup in India had to make their own logistic network.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > Amazon Go is being absorbed Resistance is futile.
strulovich 5y ago
Looks like they might go away as Amazon merges the technology into Whole Foods: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/technology/whole-foods-amazon-automation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/technology/whole-foods-am... (Sorry for paywalled article)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mabbo 5y ago
I hope so. It's honestly the coolest tech I've experienced in a while. It's invisible but a great UX. From what I've read, today it's so expensive in terms of hardware that it's probably a money pit. But hardware gets cheaper, software gets more efficient, and eventually this stuff will just be in every store.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  They're bringing the amazon go tech to Whole Foods. Just started rolling out this week, I've got a feeling the timing here is not coincidental.

meowkit 5y ago

Amazon Go is being absorbed/rebranded under Amazon Fresh, which is supposedly like Whole Foods lite/their delivery service. Might be wrong, this is just my observation in SEA/what I recall.

Breza 5y ago
The local Whole Foods closed years ago due to a rat infestation and a lease dispute. They just reopened as the first "just walk out" Whole Foods. I imagine a lot of the Amazon Go energy will be going into more of the existing Whole Foods stores. If I worked at Whole foods right now, I'd be updating my resume for the day the robots come.
mikepurvis 5y ago
I was an intern at Amazon in Seattle in 2008 and was ordering groceries and beer from Fresh. It looks like it's a pretty big deal now in most major US cities, but I remember being surprised that year after year after year it seemed to just.... continue existing. Not going huge, but also not getting canned. On the other hand, maybe that's the real lesson of Grocery Gateway and "dot coms" who tried to do a hard burn on this back in the day— it's a really hard thing to get right, and getting it right requires an extremely long horizon of slow and steady growth.
- mabbo 5y ago
  For a long time, Fresh did not directly make a profit. That wasn't it's purpose. The goal of Amazon fresh was to say "hey UPS! Looks like we can do deliveries all by ourselves without you! Give us a better deal or we'll become your competitor". Because all those deliveries were on Amazon trucks. Then one day Amazon's delivery needs scaled beyond what UPS was willing to take on. And so Amazon Logistics became a major thing.
  - xdeepak81 5y ago
    Amazon logistics actually started first in India because India was an unorganized section and there was no other company that can support Amazon. Almost every startup in India had to make their own logistic network.
WalterBright 5y ago
> Amazon Go is being absorbed Resistance is futile.

strulovich 5y ago

Looks like they might go away as Amazon merges the technology into Whole Foods: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/technology/whole-foods-amazon-automation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/technology/whole-foods-am... (Sorry for paywalled article)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mabbo 5y ago

I hope so. It's honestly the coolest tech I've experienced in a while. It's invisible but a great UX. From what I've read, today it's so expensive in terms of hardware that it's probably a money pit. But hardware gets cheaper, software gets more efficient, and eventually this stuff will just be in every store.

colinmhayes 5y ago
They're bringing the amazon go tech to Whole Foods. Just started rolling out this week, I've got a feeling the timing here is not coincidental.