Amazon Opens First Go Grocery Store in Seattle

Amazon this week opened its first physical Amazon Go Grocery store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. 

This comes two years after the company first opened several Amazon Go storefronts in various business districts of larger cities across the country. Like Amazon Go convenience stores – which are without checkout lines or personnel and carry assorted products that appeal to working professionals on-the-go like quick meals and snacks – Amazon Go Grocery stores follow a similar set up but carry the inventory of a fully stocked grocery store.

Media reports describe the grocery store as featuring shopping carts, fresh produce and bakery displays, frozen items, dairy and meat cases and even a self-service Starbucks station. Shoppers will note there is some crossing over of brands including Whole Food’s 365 organic branding.

 At the Go Grocery store, a user enters the store through kiosks using their Amazon Go smartphone app. They can pick up free (for now) green shopping bags and begin loading them as they shop. They can walk out when they’re done and the surveillance technology in the store that tracked the user will generate a charge on their Amazon account shortly thereafter.

The just-walk-out automation that Amazon utilizes at its Go and now Go Grocery store aims for sophistication and time efficiency but company representatives also acknowledge there is a learning and fine-tuning period in observing human behavior in grocery stores such as rummaging through produce bins or putting products back where they don’t belong.

Go Grocery will not feature store pick-up or on-demand delivery as company leaders say this format is meant for completing quick trips. At present the company is focused on polishing this format and has not offered any more information of any other Go Grocery locations.