Amazon Fresh is a subsidiary of the American e-commerce company Amazon in Seattle, Washington. It is a grocery retailer with physical stores and delivery services in some U.S. cities, as well as some international cities, such as Berlin, Hamburg, London, Milan, Munich, Rome, and some other locations in Singapore and India.[1]
Amazon Fresh was initially a delivery service. In 2020 the concept changed to a chain of physical, cashier-less supermarkets.
An Amazon Fresh delivery truck in SeattleAmazon Fresh convenience store in London, United Kingdom
Amazon Fresh started in 2007 as an invite-only grocery delivery service in Washington.[2] It rolled out its services gradually, targeting specific parts of various metropolitan areas and partnering with local speciality stores for delivery of local items. In March 2017, Amazon announced the beta launch of AmazonFresh Pickup, a drive-in grocery store for Amazon Prime subscribers where users shop online, reserve times to pick up the groceries, and have them loaded into their cars at the store.[3][4] In the United Kingdom, Amazon signed a deal with the British supermarket chain Morrisons to provide supplies for Amazon Prime Pantry and PrimeFresh.[5] In Germany, the product range is 85,000 product lines. By comparison, the REWE supermarket chain's home delivery service has 9,000 product lines.[6]
On November 2, 2017, Amazon announced it was discontinuing its Fresh service to some smaller towns and cities in California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.[7]
Physical, cashier-less supermarkets
Amazon Fresh grocery store in Warrington, Pennsylvania
In 2020, Amazon announced that they would use the name "Amazon Fresh" for their new chain of physical grocery stores in the Los Angeles and Chicago areas. The stores featured cashier-less (UK: till-less) shopping, with surveillance cameras and other technology ensuring that shoppers' purchases were automatically registered without needing to be individually scanned at a checkout counter. More than half use the "Just Walk Out" technology, while others use Dash Carts.[8]
Dash Carts are shopping carts with a touchscreen, barcode scanner, cameras, and various sensors to count items placed and removed from the cart, allowing customers to skip conventional checkouts. The customer scans a QR code from their Amazon app to link their Amazon account so their purchase can be billed through the payment method linked in their Amazon account.[9][10] The cart also has a weight sensor to weigh produce priced by weight.[11]
Some Amazon Fresh stores use "grab and go" or "Just Walk Out" technology similar to that in Amazon Go stores, which tracks what customers take and place back. It allows customers to skip conventional checkouts while also eliminating the need to use Dash Carts. While presented to customers as an automated process, it relied on an India-based team of over 1,000 human reviewers to verify checkout accuracy.[12] Currently, there are no Amazon Fresh stores that use both "grab and go" and Dash Carts.[13]
In April 2024, Amazon confirmed that the Just Walk Out technology would be phased out in favor of using Dash Carts at all Amazon Fresh locations.[12] Amazon still plans to sell the Just Walk Out technology to other businesses, primarily smaller format stores.[14]
Also in April 2024, Amazon began offering Dash Carts to other supermarkets, beginning with a small number of Price Chopper and McKeever’s Market locations located in Kansas and Missouri. The objective was to turn the technology into a service business. It follows Amazon selling the Just Walk Out technology to other businesses in March 2020.[15][16]
Due to criticism regarding Amazon Go stores not accepting cash, some Amazon Fresh stores also have checkout lanes for customers who want to pay with cash[10] or do not have an Amazon account.[citation needed]
Controversy
A study of shoppers found that while customers appreciated not having to wait in line, they felt "a sense of embarrassment and doubt due to tracking and the over-control generated" by the very visible surveillance cameras through the Amazon Fresh stores.[17] The surveillance has been described as giving a "Big Brother" feel that challenges customers' trust.[18] This has been proposed as a possible reason for why customers tend to go to other nearby stores instead of Amazon Fresh.[8]
In 2021 a class-action law suit was filed against Amazon in New York for not alerting customers that it was monitoring their body shapes and palm prints.[19] Employees have also complained about excessive surveillance of workers in Amazon Fresh warehouses.[20]
On November 17, 2022, it was reported that the development of all upcoming Amazon Fresh grocery stores had been indefinitely paused “pending evaluation of the operation.”[26] In February 2023 two Amazon Fresh storefronts that had not yet opened in Brookfield and Westport Connecticut were abandoned and sold to Big Y Supermarket.[27] In July 2023 three London locations were closed, including the first to be opened.[28] The company continued to state that it would continue to grow despite the closures and underwhelming sales figures.[29]
Product lines
Amazon Fresh sells grocery items and a subset of items from the main Amazon.com storefront. Items ordered through Amazon Fresh are available for home delivery on the same day or the next day, depending on the time of the order and the availability of delivery slots.
Amazon Fresh operates independently of Whole Foods Market, which is also owned by Amazon. They have separate facilities and separate inventories that they sell. Market research from Amazon shows that customers at Amazon Fresh tend to have lower incomes and are more likely to be Hispanic or particularly Asian than customers of Whole Foods.[30]
Amazon Fresh store in Naperville, IL, with a Dash Cart in the background
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