



Amazon turns over a new leaf in physical stores. It’s about grocery delivery.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Amazon.com is closing dozens of Amazon Fresh physical stores and automated Amazon Go outlets to focus on expanding its same-day grocery deliveries to more locations and adding to its Whole Foods Market operations. The e-commerce retailer admitted in a blog post on Tuesday that although it has seen “encouraging signals" in its Amazon-branded physical grocery stores and “gathered valuable insights" about customer preferences, “we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion." Amazon will convert some of the locations to Whole Foods stores, as part of plans to open 100 or more Whole Foods Market locations in the next few years.
Amazon’s stock was up 2% to around $243 in early afternoon trading, while the S&P 500 was up 0.5%. The stock is up about 5.5% this year and up 2.2% over the past 12 months. Walmart’s stock was down 0.5% in afternoon trading, while Instacart was down nearly 6%.
Amazon has battled for grocery sales market share with Walmart, which has 4,000 stores. Amazon calls itself one of the top three grocers in the U.S., with more than $150 billion in gross sales and more than 150 million customers shopping for groceries each year. Mizuho analysts led by David Bellinger said developing a larger fulfillment network could help Amazon push its market share into the mid-single digit range over the next two to three years from an estimated 3% in the category now.
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