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Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#101

Post by calvinmorrison »

eithed wrote: post #95
nayroclade wrote: post #20

I always found the "Amazon 4-Star" name funny. Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star", which just sounds awkward, and lacks the suggestion of top-quality that "5-Star" would. Instead, it's like the "Amazon Not-too-bad" store. I was amaze…

When did naming things have to reflect reality? ie it's "Burger King" and not "Bearable Burger"

who is this appointed this beef monarch anyway?

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#102

Post by testfoobar »

jedberg wrote: post #87

I don't know about other areas, but here in the Bay Area (or at least Silicon Valley) our Whole Foods has subsumed all the services provided by Amazon Fresh (and Go really never worked). So we're not really losing any services, just the brand name.

I miss the old Whole Foods.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#103

Post by PaulHoule »

Insanity wrote: post #51
mjr00 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. I'm not an economist so I have no idea why. The outsourcing rates I've all seen have gotten way higher in the past ~10 years though.

Beyond just the usual inflation? I'm not an economist either, but I also assume that as the country attracts more local talent for local companies, the competition for outsourcing becomes harder. (i.e, you now have to pay more than the local companies). All just speculation on my part though, I really have no clue either.

People from Bangalore were telling me it was getting crazy expensive to live there (by Indian standards) circa 2013.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#104

Post by bayarearefugee »

cmiles8 wrote: post #7

Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…

> Since that story broke nobody there seems to want to talk about “just walk out” anymore.

Optimus and Robotaxi are just as fake and Elon Musk never shuts up about them.

I guess Amazon never learned the important lesson that the OP meta for modern technology companies is just to consistently and blatantly lie.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#105

Post by buildsjets »

chronny903 wrote: post #70
MattDamonSpace wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be rude but there’s 4 Amazon Fresh locations in the greater Seattle area and each of them is next to multiple other large/small grocery options. For instance, the one in north Seattle (Shoreline) is within eyesight of a Safeway, a Sprouts, two international markets and a chef wholesaler. The other three locations are similarly crowded with options. What food desert are you referring to?

> What food desert are you referring to? His food desert that doesn’t exist.

Food deserts do exist, but Seattle's Central District is not one of them. This US government tool used to literally be called the "Food Desert Locator" until the current administration re-named it to "Food Access Research Atlas"

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-...

It's really the suburban areas of Seattle that develop food deserts, likely due to restrictive zoning for commercial properties and minimum lot-size requirements that make sure that every grocery store is a long SUV ride away from the cu-de-sac neighborhood.

If the term Food Desert offends you, I can gladly switch to calling it Food Apartheid instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/food-aparthe...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#106

Post by aqme28 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #96
Bluecobra wrote: post #76

Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with thei…

Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.

I think this is why Lidl is taking off in parts of the US.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#107

Post by tmoertel »

ceejayoz wrote: post #100
PaulHoule wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.

I'm in Wegmans' home town, and the enshittification process has hit them hard in recent years.

What changes have you noticed?

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#108

Post by randycupertino »

Bluecobra wrote: post #76

Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with thei…

I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a comparison I put the same items in my cart for Amazon fresh and Walmart and it was $21 at Amazon fresh and $36 at Walmart. WAY cheaper than Instacart too.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#109

Post by bluedino »

kube-system wrote: post #65
proee wrote: post #26

Has anyone used their go stores? I'm curious how the experience felt from a consumer standpoint. Do you feel welcomed or more like a thief? I remember WAY back in the day when Arby's implemented touch screen ordering (on CRTs!) and it was a very quirky process. An Arby's employee would sit behind the counter and stare at you while you spent 5 minutes poking a CRT display. Very slow and very impersonal. They discontin…

Every time I walk into a McDonalds I see people who will rather stand 5 minutes at the counter waiting for a human cashier than use one of the available kiosks. I'm sure some are paying cash but there are certainly people who are just not comfortable with technology. The Go stores were a great experience but they would certainly be uncomfortable for anyone other than early-adopter or tech-forward types of people. I w…

McDonalds solved that problem by basically not having employees go up to the counter anymore.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#110

Post by xp84 »

cmiles8 wrote: post #25
hackingonempty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no difference from the customer perspective so the store failed for reasons that have nothing to do with the "just walk out" technology or lack thereof. Why spend lots of money doing R&D only to find out that the concept doesn't sell? Wait for the product to be successful before spending the money to scale it up. Same as anything else. "Do things that don't scale."

I think the idea could work well but the execution in the field was consistently very poor. There were a few of these at airports with just an intimidating gate and generally non-engaging human standing there. It was as if they expected everyone to know what to do, but when I’d watch 99% of people just sort of looked at the store, saw the odd gate things, and then just shrugged and walked off. The stores were almost…

I agree, it needed a better hook to get people in the 'gates' so to speak. I don't think I've ever waited behind like maybe a single transaction at an airport convenience store, so it's not like having to fiddle with my phone to get in beats tapping a card or phone or watch at checkout. Either way most people are buying 1-3 things so it's not like it saved time scanning.

As for the big Amazon Fresh grocery stores, I only have one out of my way so I only visited once or twice, but the big things I noticed were that it had a small selection and very average prices. Not that surprising because even after buying Whole Foods, Amazon itself has terrible prices on dry goods (meaning supermarket items besides fresh food), and relies heavily on random third-party sellers with big markups for a ton of it.

If they really wanted to get people to buy into Amazon Fresh it would have taken a lot more money (and thus pretty unprofitable for a long while): Probably one way to do that would have been making it as attractive as Costco for Prime members.

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