Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#511

Post by Bluecobra » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:24 PM UTC

kevstev wrote: post #398

liveoneggs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The delivery shoppers are especially bad at whole foods. There really must be a critical mass where having a grocery warehouse makes more sense than these people meandering around.

There is actually. I used to work in grocery e-commerce. The model is pickers in a store --> a "dark store" that looks more like a home Depot with only pickers, not open to public --> warehouse like environment with various levels of automation. This was a bit before the model of having Uber driver type delivery though. I am guessing that having the deliverers be close to the deliverees make it more economical to kee…

Peapod? I really miss their drivers, I had the nicest guy on my route and they always handled cold deliveries properly in those big green crates.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#512

Post by burningChrome » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

BoredPositron wrote: post #470

davidst wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first iteration of the tech reached the accuracy needed to support just-walk-out for a small-format store. It did achieve that goal. I left the project before it went further. I imagined, at the time, future goals would be to scale store size and product variety while reducing the cost of the technology, but I have no insight into how that progressed. I am sorry to learn it's been shut down.

But they started to have more clerks at the stores 2-3 weeks after launch and they were still present when I last visited one.

This was one of the issues that killed it. They continually missed goals of reducing human involvement.

Training is part of any AI project, but it sounds like Amazon wasn’t making much progress, even after years of working on the project. “As of mid-2022, Just Walk Out required about 700 human reviews per 1,000 sales, far above an internal target of reducing the number of reviews to between 20 and 50 per 1,000 sales,” the report said.

The report said Amazon’s team “repeatedly missed goals” to cut down on human reviews, and “the reliance on backup humans explains in part why it can take hours for customers to receive receipts.”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-power...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#513

Post by Terretta » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

scoot wrote: post #471

davidst wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left the following comment some months ago, duplicating it here: [Disclaimer: Former Amazon employee and not involved with Go since 2016.] I worked on the first iteration of Amazon Go in 2015/16 and can provide some context on the human oversight aspects. The system incorporated human review in two primary capacities: 1. Low-confidence event resolution: A subset of customer interactions resulted in low-confidence c…

Obligatory /disclaimer/disclosure/. (Don't worry, most HNrs get this wrong for some reason. I will be downvoted for pointing this out, but whatever. It's a meaningful difference to those that understand.)

Arguably they first disclose (employee) then disclaim (but not for a while now)...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#514

Post by NickC25 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

frutiger wrote: post #510

throwaway173738 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really simple. Loans don’t count as income so you use your stock to get guaranteed loans. And you don’t take most of your income on a W2 you take it in stock.

I know. I would still be impressed if Bezos’s w-2 income was below $400k. Edit: also you need to pay the loan back, and the income to pay it back is taxable. You can die with an outstanding loan, but i’m sure bezos lenders will structure the loan to make sure they get most of their money back.

Or you just get another loan from another party to pay the initial loan back.

Bezos probably has an army of banks, private lenders, and private capital connections to effectively have a lifetime of loans against his Amazon shares.

It's a pyramid scheme, except the guy at the top actually has the money and collateral.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#515

Post by jzymbaluk » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #444

jzymbaluk wrote: post #432

I live right down the street from an Amazon Go store, and I like it because it's convenient when it's open, but the hours on this store stunk: it closed at 4pm sometimes. I found it very funny that this store advertised itself as a fully automated experience, when in fact there needs to be a worker/manager there all the time for it to be open. If it were actually automated, it could've been open 24/7

Meanwhile in East Asia they have no problem with tons of 24/7/365 stores, even fully vending machine stores. Heck even Europe has vending machine stores that are constantly open without even a door that could be closed, selling grocery basics.

I wonder why that hasn't caught on in the states. My first thought is vandalism/people destroying or stealing the automated equipment, but surely that's not a unique problem to the US

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#516

Post by quetzthecoatl » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

leosanchez wrote: post #152

linkregister wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're most likely correct; I originally started writing this comment to refute your statement, but found that my assumptions appear to be wrong. Americans have the nearly the highest nominal and PPP income of OECD countries as of 2024, only behind Luxembourg, Iceland, and Switzerland [1]. India experiences substantially higher shelter and food insecurity and poverty rates than the United States. However, tech worker…

> It appears to be reasonable for a technology worker to be able to perform a sustained strike. I don't think the strikes are done by tech people at all. Just normal workers.

and it was an absolutely made up number. The real numbers would be so low it was insignificant. That number was only reported in global outlets, and that strike had zero practical impact in India. It was so uneventful, almost all of India except select pockets that has communist party influence didn't even know about the whole thing - let alone felt the impact of the strike.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#517

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #461

CamperBob2 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares how they monitor and validate transactions? That's Amazon's problem, not mine. Indians, AI, whatever, meh.

In my country they have 16 year old kids working in the supermarket. They are pretty cheap to employ and these jobs train the boys and girls into becoming adults. It would be a shame if this shared experience was taken over by third worlders.

Still doesn't sound like my problem.

Meanwhile the distinction between the US and the so-called "third world" seems to become less apparent and less relevant every day. Indian teenagers need jobs too, don't they? More power to them.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#518

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #261

cyberax wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wegmans is popular because Wegmansnis good. But if you have a local baker, a local grocer, a local deli, and a small grocery store within the same block, all within walking distance of your apartment, you don’t need to deal with the hassles of finding stuff within a massive supermarket. Except that you don't. Typically, you have maybe one small store selling random junk reasonably close to you. At high prices, beca…

There's probably 5 CVS locations (and 3 Chase private banking lobbies) between your subway stop and your apartment :)

... which aren't competitive!

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#519

Post by rpncreator » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

There are around 12 Amazon Go / Amazon Fresh in the metro Chicago area. Unless all employees are part-time employees (and assuming around 10-ish employees per store), I seriously wonder how they got around Illinois WARN requirements [1] requiring 60 days advance notice of the closures.

[1] https://labor.illinois.gov/laws-rules/conmed/warn.html

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#520

Post by ericmcer » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

jzymbaluk wrote: post #515

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile in East Asia they have no problem with tons of 24/7/365 stores, even fully vending machine stores. Heck even Europe has vending machine stores that are constantly open without even a door that could be closed, selling grocery basics.

I wonder why that hasn't caught on in the states. My first thought is vandalism/people destroying or stealing the automated equipment, but surely that's not a unique problem to the US

My experience is mostly in the Bay Area, but people are extremely excited here to destroy anything that can be tied to a big corporation. Smashing the dumb E-scooters, beating up Waymos or just bricking a banks windows were just like regular events here. The culture definitely idealized and encouraged it.