Amazon shutting Amazon Go convenience stores to reduce cost

Amazon Go is closing down eight of its convenience store locations. The company said that this move is part of its plan to reduce costs.

As per Fox Business, the convenience store chain is shutting eight Amazon Go stores on April 1. The locations are closing permanently in major cities. It was mentioned that two stores in New York City, two in Seattle, and four in San Francisco are affected.

Then again, Amazon said that two of the closures in Seattle will only have a small impact because these have been closed down for some time already. Currently, the e-commerce retail company is working with employees who will be affected by the shutdowns. The workers are said to be checking out new roles within the company for possible transfers to other Amazon Go stores or operation sites of Amazon.

The company’s spokesman told Fox Business via email as it commented on the closures, "Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way. In this case, we’ve decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco."

In any case, despite the shutdowns, Amazon will still be launching new Amazon Go outlets. The spokesman further stated, "We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the U.S., and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores."

CNBC reported that Amazon’s chief executive officer, Andy Jassy, has been working to find ways of trimming the company’s expenses through the grocery division and other units where sales are slow. It has already closed some of its warehouses and brick-and-mortar retail stores with layoffs of workers as well to cut costs.

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