Amazon will close two cashierless Go stores in New York City, two in Seattle and four in San Francisco on April 1, according to GeekWire. The e-commerce giant made the announcement the same day he admitted that he is pausing construction on his second headquarters in Arlington, Va., while he re-evaluates his office needs as more and more people prefer to work remotely. . As Bloomberg Note, these are just Amazon’s latest cost-cutting moves amid slowing sales growth. In January, the company extended its planned job cuts from 10,000 to 18,000 positions, with layoffs since then mainly affecting staff in its recruiting and retail divisions.
Company spokeswoman Jessica Martin told the publications in a statement: “Like any physical retailer, we regularly assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operating more than 20 Amazon Go stores worldwide. US and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate the most with customers.”
The internet retail titan’s Go stores were designed to be high-tech stores equipped with cameras and sensors that can detect when products are taken from and returned to the shelves. Customers can grab any item they want, which will be added to their virtual cart for online checkout, and then walk out of the store without going through a cashier.
While Amazon still has more than 20 Go stores in the country, it has long struggled to conquer the physical retail space and has been changing strategies from time to time. It used to have 87 retail pop-up kiosks in the US, but the company shut them down before the pandemic hit. And in 2022, Amazon closed its 68 brick-and-mortar bookstores, pop-up locations, and 4-star stores in the US and UK. However, just in February, CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to grow big in its brick-and-mortar grocery store business. he told the financial times: “We are hopeful that in 2023 we will have a format in which we want to go big, physically.”
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