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Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed.

Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras.

If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost point it would have been great since nobody likes those silly self checkout machines.

What’s amusing about all of this is that before it got leaked that it was basically a bunch of people in India watching cameras Amazon folks spoke about the tech like there was some super secret AI they developed. Since that story broke nobody there seems to want to talk about “just walk out” anymore.

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go )

Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech never reached the expected performance + outsourced workers got (relatively) much more expensive after COVID.

Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with their nonsense is that some of their prices are insane and they have easy returns, for example $0.85 for a box of Barilla pasta. They actually don’t accept returns in store and just refund you automatically in the app (Returnless returns). It’s pretty silly and rife for abuse.

I also found a loophole with the Amazon.com return grocery credit. The systems are separate for the $10 off $40 coupon and you just scan a QR code in the store to get it. It turns out you can just take a photo of their QR code and reuse it over and over again.

These stores were solving for an Amazon problem (brick and mortar stores without the expense of workers), and not any significant customer problem.

They often put them in places, hoping that people would be attracted by marginally lower prices and brand extension, all while removing one of the primary appeals (for most people) of in person grocery shopping: impromptu community socialization, even if it is simply greeting the checkout worker.

I'm not surprised they failed.

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 Fresh stores are kind of a weird shopping experience with a mix of normal, overpriced and bizarrely cheap at different times.

I've gotten into the habit of stopping in to wander the aisles and check prices because of it (e.g. I stocked up on a bunch of canned soup when most (but not all) Progresso soups were $0.44 a month or two back, and I picked up some microwavable rice+quinoa pouches for my wife at $0.35 each a couple weeks ago, but the inconsistency and overall not great prices mean it can't be my go-to grocery destination.

I'm sure the one by me will be closing since there's a significantly larger Whole Foods just a few miles away.

Every time I check I am still amazed that the Amazon Hair Salon in London is still open. https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=26247109031

These bastards drove out some nice stores near me (supposedly the lease ended and did not renew) and rebuilt the buildings in order to open an Amazon Fresh location. That Amazon Fresh store never opened. Now we have a giant empty storefront nobody uses.

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

I always found the "Amazon 4-Star" name funny. Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star", which just sounds awkward, and lacks the suggestion of top-quality that "5-Star" would. Instead, it's like the "Amazon Not-too-bad" store. I was amazed that they actually went ahead with it.

Hmm Amazon fresh was useless anyway. It was this weird niche of grocery delivery but for small urgent orders. I just don't have that need like ever, if I need a bottle of shampoo or a head of lettuce urgently I'll just go to the corner shop.

Edit: oh oops I see this is about physical fresh stores, we never had those in the first place. Here in Europe Amazon fresh is a weird service for quick small grocery orders. For the bigger ones they partner with a local supermarket ("dia" here in Spain). But I never do grocery delivery because I never make any plans, I just make my life up as I go along :)

But Amazon fresh here is expensive and still slow (2hrs) so really not good for anything.

Amazon go I'm not even sure what that is.

The Amazon Go stores in San Francisco were weird. They always had no people shopping in them, which would make sense given the increased efficiency, but it amplified the "am I stealing?" vibe. And the cost of goods wasn't made any cheaper than comparable stores in SF despite the touted increased efficiency.

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

The Amazon Fresh in North Seattle had Just Walk Out. Initially you had to "scan in" and "scan out" and then they eventually removed the "scan out" (or scan in? can't remember). From a shopper's perspective, it was pretty good, and I was hopeful they'd figure out the tech. One time they overcharged me for a paper bag and there was no way to dispute it. It was only $0.08, but really rubbed me the wrong way. I know I got a fair bit of stuff for free as they seemed to err on the side of not charging vs. charging if they weren't able to figure it out, though.

I actually did find it saved me time. I would go in, grab a couple things, and leave, and it was actually a good experience to do that. I never did full grocery store runs there, though.

The aisles were always packed with workers picking/packing orders, which was frustrating to deal with.

One thing that was bad about it was that produce was all fixed price. At a normal store you pay per pound for an onion, but there every onion was $1 (or whatever the price was). Giant onion, tiny onion, all the same price. The produce got picked over in weird ways because of that.

Then one day they said, "okay, Just Walk Out is gone, it's just a normal grocery store now." Then it just became just a mediocre grocery store. There were definitely periods where aisles could be nearly empty, but lately it's been okay. Prices were great, though -- by far the cheapest in the area.

Their hot bar was extremely mediocre. I like the Whole Foods one, but theirs was just... not good. Half the time they didn't even have it stocked with food.

They had a little stand up front where kids could get a free piece of fruit, which mine liked.

It also had convenient returns for Amazon purchases, which was about half of what I went there for.

It was a convenient place for me, and I like it better than Safeway, but I can't say I'm too heartbroken that it's going away. QFC/Sprouts/Town&Country/Safeway are a few minutes in any direction, but they're more expensive. I doubt they'll turn this one into a Whole Foods either.

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

We have Żabka Nano which is self-serve cashierless shop in Poland. You just swipe you card at the entrance, get whatever you want and walk out. I think they use computer vision system to detect the products taken from the shelves. It kinda amazes me because it's what Amazon promised but failed to deliver.

Has anyone used their go stores? I'm curious how the experience felt from a consumer standpoint. Do you feel welcomed or more like a thief?

I remember WAY back in the day when Arby's implemented touch screen ordering (on CRTs!) and it was a very quirky process. An Arby's employee would sit behind the counter and stare at you while you spent 5 minutes poking a CRT display. Very slow and very impersonal. They discontinued them in a short period of time.

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

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.

I used one in San Francisco once because I wanted to try it out. It was honestly a rather flawless experience for me and I liked it because the scan gate and minders (it was when it launched - I don't know if they kept them) kept the shoplifters out. Shoplifters are unpleasant to share a store with. Unsurprisingly, those who skip some social norms also skip other ones.

Anyway, I didn't go back after the first time because it was more like a corner store than a grocery store. Bags of chips and sandwiches in plastic boxes and so on. Overall, the modern Whole Foods is a much better experience. Guards at the entrance to keep unpleasant people out, a fairly quick check-out experience, and the ability to scan your palm instead of having to pull out a credit card or tap your watch.

About the only improvement that I would personally like is a Fast Shopper bonus where you scan something that maps you to your Amazon Prime profile and if you finish checking out fast you get access to a faster lane. The only downside is when people with large bags of things insist on using the self check-out counters and then stand there having mis-scanned items.

Speeding up check-out is a personal life improvement but realistically it would not cause me to shop more, so I understand discontinuing the store.

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.

Once their vision for "grab and go" vanished due to technological infeasibility [1] the entire premise for the stores vanished as well.

I suspect that they wanted to take a hail marry to see if somehow it was possible to get much greater efficiency compared to standard grocers, and it looks like that failed.

[1] it may come back. The technology is rapidly improving but they have bigger fish to fry ATM.

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.

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...

Damn. I just got an email that they'll be discontinuing the palm payment June 3. I've barely used Fresh and Go, but I use this at self checkout at Whole Foods all the time. Beats finding the code to scan and using Apple Pay.

> We're reaching out because you have an active Amazon One account. Amazon One palm authentication services will be discontinued at retail businesses on June 3, 2026. You can continue using Amazon One at participating locations until that date.

> Amazon will automatically delete Amazon One user data, including palm data. No action is needed from you.

These were absolutely incredible when they first opened up right on until covid. The blue-apron style meal kits they had were actually really tasty and the gimmicky integration with Alexa to tell you the next step in the recipe was actually kind of useful when you were busy stirring a pot or cutting something and too busy to pull out the recipe card. It was like a 7-Eleven, but with the prices of a normal grocery store and higher quality prepared food. Not needing to deal with checkout felt freeing. I substituted many grocery store runs with a quick walk over to the original Amazon Go back in the day.

After covid, it was never the same. Open for shorter windows, closed on Sundays, reduced selection, no more meal kits etc.

I had many friends who worked on Amazon Go, so it's a bit sad to see that work come to an end.

I’m in an interesting place. Here in Seattle I am two blocks from one of the largest Amazon Fresh stores. It was built on the former location of a local grocer. The construction was almost complete before Covid hit, but Amazon shuttered the store during that time. As a result there was no groceries in my neighborhood from 2018-2023.

Now it seems Amazon is going to leave us a grocery desert yet again.

They were piloting smart carts at the location. The cart scans your items so checking out you just push the cart through a scanner that weighs it. But this invention was like a microcosm of Amazon’s whole fuckup with groceries. The problem with the store wasn’t that I couldn’t check out fast enough, it’s that it was a shit grocery store. They had popular products but they were missing all the unpopular, low margin products you need to actually cook (baking powder, shortening, tomato paste, soy sauce…). They only hire non-union jobs program people at the registers because Amazon believes that cashier is a sub-human role.

The previous store had an owner who would wander the aisles and chat with customers. The new store has Europeans with clipboards who watch you as you shop.

Amazon Fresh provided lots of good jobs in my community. Family members worked there. Good pay and they employed locally (or can walk to work). Same with whole foods. Too bad Amazon couldn't make it work. Interesting timing with their push for more online grocery offerings.

The "1000 people in India watching cameras" reveal was the moment the magic died. Once you know the wizard is just a guy behind a curtain, you can't unsee it.

The interesting question isn't whether the tech was ready. It wasn't. The question is whether Amazon learned anything useful from the attempt.

Computer vision for retail checkout is a legitimate hard problem. Occlusion, similar-looking products, people changing their minds. I've worked on CV pipelines and the gap between "works in the demo" and "works at scale" is brutal.

My guess: they collected a ton of training data from those human reviewers. Whether they'll use it for a v2 or just write it off, who knows.

This will forever be a masterpiece

https://youtu.be/CNoa-9TBH30?si=Zl7hdZ1fBqeXHM_8

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

Amazon Go had one of the best turkey pesto sandwiches you could buy for $6. It was my treat after driving back from the dog park. I felt sad after they closed that Go store. Coffee (Starbucks) was free with a minimum purchase of $5, which the sandwich covered. I miss that, but only that. There was literally nothing useful to buy on the go. All weird Amazon products, nothing close to 7-Eleven.

I like Whole Foods because it feels warm and the food looks good. The Amazon stores felt like walking inside a vending machine and that is not how people want to buy dinner.

The technology lives on, as Amazon "Just Walk Out". But rather than general grocery stores, it is used for concessions at stadiums and places like that.

I guess it turned out that the need more human intervention than they hoped, so the cost is too high for regular stores. However at places where a premium can be charged for high throughput or a low friction experience then the cost of the human intervention can be recouped.

Not surprised. Unless the item is on sale (which can be very good deals) their pricing is no better than a standard supermarket and usually far more expensive than a Target or WalMart. And they quickly gave up on the scan and go where the smart shopping card read everything in the basket and automatically charged your Amazon account, so it was back to regular checkout.

I thought they already did close them.

I know at some point they got caught basically paying people to watch cameras to figure out what products people we're grabbing. I'm sure were either at the point or very close to the point where AI can successfully do this basically 100% of the time.

So I doubt it's the tech aspect of this, more just the grossness a person feels walking into a store with Amazon's name on it. Compare this to whole foods.

Well, that article made me nervous for a second! I love my Amazon Fresh grocery delivery. I started using it during Covid, but could never go back. It's so nice having groceries feel automated instead of a semi-daily chore. I eat much healthier and the rationale for using DoorDash evaporated.

Absolutely zero interest in a physical version that lets me check-out easier, though. So, I can see why they're making this switch.

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.

Yeah, they've just closed the one near me. I think they underestimated how hard it would be, at least in the UK - the existing supermarket chains are already competitive, mostly pretty good, and people have surprisingly high brand loyalty to them. I don't think I've even talked to anyone who has shopped in Amazon Fresh, or even wanted to.

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

Did the humans pretending to be the AI unionize?

Coincidentally(?) they are open their first big box retail store: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/09/amazon-plans-first-big-b...

They built one in my area a few years ago and then never opened it. It’s just been sitting vacant the entire time.

I stopped into the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, PA, to check it out not too long ago. It just looks bland and dystopian from the outside, and not much about it is impressive from the inside. I've worked with computers and technology my whole life, and the entrance to the store just confused me. If I remember correctly, I had to scan the Amazon app on my phone to enter the building. Once inside, it felt like a warehouse; the aisles were too small, and the food selection wasn't even really that great. (From memory, it was a few years ago that I went)

All in all, it's a cool concept on paper with absolutely terrible execution.

Only went once, bought some snacks, and left.

Wow, they just opened a brand new one in Philly less than two months ago. I've yet to shop there and I guess now I never will. It must have cost millions to clear that site and build a whole new building there. Just to abandon it. I wish I had money to waste like that.

Edit: it actually opened in August, so it was around for about six months instead of two.

What! I loved the Amazon fresh in my neighborhood. It was way better than any other grocery store. I can’t believe this. I hope it at least gets converted to a Whole Foods

I’m not surprised about Amazon Go but I’m surprised about Amazon Fresh.

They almost seemed like an extension of Whole Foods to a more mainstream suburban market, and I thought they had solid foot traffic.

My wife will be heartbroken. We moved recently and she loves shopping at Amazon Fresh. (Though part of the reason was that it was never busy :)

In my town they redeveloped an empty corner lot at a busy intersection just for the Amazon Fresh store. I guess it'll go back to being empty again...

I guess that is curtains for the Amazon Go kiosks in Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena? That whole arena was setup as a poorly veiled Amazon store...

I wonder this will impact the "just walk out" booze stores at T-Mobile Park (MLB)? Those seem pretty successful.

The "just walk out" surveillance system sucked, but the Dash Cart shopping was actually pretty nice/

The only time I tried one of these it locked my credit card, while visiting the US. Not a fun time.

I have never been to an Amazon Fresh store. But I do remember that French chain that trolled Amazon with their humans first approach.

Fortunately my Amazon branded subcutaneous chip still works at Wholefoods.

I don't know about other areas, but here in the Bay Area (or at least Silicon Valley) our Whole Foods has subsumed all the services provided by Amazon Fresh (and Go really never worked). So we're not really losing any services, just the brand name.

this is pretty surprising. Didn't they spent a fortune on the camera tech for Amazon Go?

Amazon keeps shutting Restaurants, their retail stores, etc., but I for one am glad they are at least trying. I agree that the fiasco around the Indians running the show was a PR nightmare for their idea, but large companies running startup like ideas should be encouraged rather than disparaged (and I am no fan of Amazon just to be clear). I think this is one of those ideas where execution failed. If you are a busy worker, it is great to just head there and grab what you need, and walk out. Just faster all around.

For about five years an Amazon Fresh in Seattle was literally my closest grocery store but I never once set foot in there, simply because it felt icky and dystopian to let Amazon any further into my life. I wonder how many others felt similarly.

Oh no! Anyway

Of course it failed, nobody want to shop at a limited selection with mandatory signing up amazon store that closes at like 8.

But a 24/7 data driven store that is a last resort would have succeeded.

Put slop bowls at business areas, Junk food where there are clubs for drunk people.

Moving season in college town, put some stationary and some tools for DIY stuff.

In valentines cheap wine and chocolate for the singles, and flowers with top rated gifts for couples.

Never saw these in europe

amazon fresh never really made much sense to me alongside wfm.

It's a trap!

Not surprised at all

Amazon is losing its freshness

What a joke. In the end all it did was effectively outsource the cashiers to India. I'm so exhausted with "tech".

I honestly thought they closed them alreay.

Disappointing. The shopping experience is mediocre and prices/quality are no better than other local supermarkets.

However, I love my local Amazon Fresh store because it's a super convenient Amazon return location...

Another one of these ideas that was the future but for various reasons wasn't.

I honestly think in some ways, going to a store is about being around other people, the same as going to a cafe, not necessarily talking, but just being in the presence of others seems to be what many people crave. I largely think it's the appeal of shopping malls.

They literally only put them in unaffordable areas. Like the only one I know is in a residential area of Southwalk in London not far from the TATE Modern museum. I don't even live in London.

Been in one once for the novelty as they've never been useful.

While https://abc7chicago.com/post/orland-park-village-board-vote-...

I noticed the other day the Amazon store near me has closed but it says a whole foods market is coming soon, which is another company they own. I wonder how many of them they’ll rebrand and keep in some form like that.

And Amazon also discontinuing Amazon One palm authentication services in whole foods. I wonder if these are related events. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46790734

If we lived in a high trust society, you could just trust people to scan their own items and walk out.

Curious thought - will they be shutting down other “just walk out” powered stuff like Hudson Nonstops in airports?

I also know some Amazon warehouses had an entire Just Walk Out powered concessions area in their breakroom for purchasing snacks in partnership with one of their canteen vendors.

As one who has spent substantially since Amazon's inception, Amazon in recent years has become an unreliable supplier in my area. Much of the product sold by Amazon is sourced from China and until recently Amazon did little to distinguish name-brand products from knockoffs. That's why companies like J&J weren't making product available on the Amazon site. Amazon Prime is laughable here, frequently taking a week or longer. The local Whole Foods is a mere shadow of its previous incarnation. Of course, most of the bookstore alternatives have been driven out of business. The B&N strategy is more appropriate to competing with Books-a-Million than the old Borders. Overall, Amazon seems more focused on its movie/TV business than it does what created it. And Bezos? Well, it's obvious that righting the ship at Amazon isn't nearly as important as being a jet setting celebrity with a new younger wife and playing with his space ahips. And BTW, I'm in a major city, not some rural town.

The local Amazon Fresh is closed this afternoon with a sign reading:

  We are closed
  for the
  remainder of 
  the day.

  We apologize for any
  inconvenience. Please come
  back tomorrow during our
  normal business hours.