Amazon is closing eight cashierless Go stores

Amazon is closing two cashierless Go stores in New York City, two in Seattle and four in San Francisco on April 1, according to GeekWire. The e-retail giant made the announcement the same day it said it was halting construction on its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia as it reassessed its office needs in the face of a growing number of people who want to work remotely. . as Bloomberg notes, this is the latest in Amazon’s cost-cutting measures amid sluggish sales growth. In January, the company expanded its planned job cuts from 10,000 to 18,000 roles, with layoffs since then mostly affecting staff from its retail and recruiting divisions.

Company spokeswoman Jessica Martin told the publication in a statement: “Like any physical retailer, we periodically review our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions. US and continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers.”

The internet retail titan’s Go stores are designed to be high-tech stores with cameras and sensors that detect when products are taken and returned to the shelves. Customers can pick up anything they want, add it to their virtual cart for online payment, and then exit the store without having to go 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 is constantly changing strategies. There used to be 87 retail pop-up kiosks in the US, but the company shut them down before the pandemic hit. And by 2022, Amazon will close all 68 of its physical bookstores, pop-up locations and 4-star stores in the US and UK. This February, however, CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to expand its brick-and-mortar grocery store business. He told the Financial Times: “We hope that by 2023, we will have a format that we want to maintain, physically.”