I've only been to the Amazon Fresh in my neighborhood, haven't been to other locations, here is what my experience was like:

They resisted implementing self checkout for years before eventually folding. No digital wallets though, you have to either use plastic or link it to your Amazon account.

The whole dash cart system was a solution in search of a problem IMO. I'm already able to check out about as efficiently as possible. Frontloading the scanning time isn't really an amazing improvement. The store was never crowded enough for it to matter.

My biggest problem with the store was that it was lacking random pantry staples and supplies that you would expect from your primary grocer. Several times I showed up in desperate need of something for a recipe or household task and they just wouldn't have it.

The produce was actually decent quality and competitively priced, but my alternative (the local Ralph's) I think just had some kind of curse or something on it because the produce at that specific location was a consistent level of awful observed over 5 years.

I hope they replace it with a whole foods, much better store IMO.

The headline in their corporate press release says "Amazon doubles down on online grocery delivery and Whole Foods Market expansion to reach more customers"

That's one way to spin things I guess.

The general force behind this is the expansion of sub-same-day delivery which they have been pushing hard for the last year. Amazon fresh was a more traditional model which didn't fit in well with amazon's strengths (fulfillment, automation) because they tried to enter a market they were directly competing with (in-person shopping) and charged users for delivery in addition to their existing membership.

It's a welcome change IMO, amazon groceries are super cheap online and now delivery is free. They have been removing the fresh name from products for a few months now and replacing with amazon grocery. Certainly less confusion for consumers, at least

Related: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-same-day-fres... https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-same-day-fres...

Amazon Fresh had no reason to exist. They closed down a great Whole Foods near me and replaced it with a store with minimal changes to safeway/albertsons. Heavy carts for automatic scanning that barely saved time at checkout.

I will miss the grab and go tech in the Amazon stores. I was hoping they would successfully manage to sell that to other stores and make the tech wide spread in bodegas, gas stations and 711s

I don't live around any Amazon Fresh stores so I never saw them though I did see the technology in use at several airports (though I've never personally used it). IMO I think places like airports are the best place for something like this, people are usually in a rush so not having to wait in line to checkout is nice and you don't have to worry about security as much because everyone there is a ticketed passenger (only saw them post-security) and even if someone did try stealing they wouldn't get very far.

They never made sense to have but I’m sure someone made a huge career and got lots of bonuses for this initiative

Shame, shopping there felt like magic. I hope the technology is developed in future without having to rely on remote workers validating transactions. Definitely felt like the future of shopping

Doesn't surprise me either. Anecdotal story coming, but there is physical location on Philadelphia, and I stopped by as I needed an item for dinner that night, and it was on my way home.

Store was kind of bare, and poorly organized. But the kicker is they didn't accept any form of mobile wallet! They had an identical POS system to wholefoods which takes it just fine.

So I quickly put my items back and headed to Giant.. Haven't been back since

I really liked the local Amazon Fresh, until they discontinued "just walk out" and replaced it with those hellish smart carts. I scanned one item successfully with the cart, got completely stuck trying to get it to scan a second one, handed the cart back to the employee, and never went back.

This was the more surprising bit for me: https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-supersizes-its-walmart-...

Amazon straight up wants to just become Walmart. Or maybe Sears is a more apt comparison given their mail-order beginnings.