Will Amazon Go ever get going?

Amazon.com announced last week that it plans to permanently close eight of its 28 Amazon Go convenience stores, representing its latest brick-and-mortar retail operations pullback.

“Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement first reported by GeekWire.

The closures come on the heels of a January announcement the online retail giant would be eliminating as many as 18,000 corporate jobs, with Amazon Stores among the departments affected. It also said it would slow warehouse growth as it rewinds an aggressive build-up during the pandemic.

Amazon, on its fourth-quarter analyst call, said it recorded impairments of property and operating leases, primarily related to Amazon Fresh and Go stores.

In March of last year, Amazon announced it was closing all 68 of its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up locations across the U.S. and the UK to focus on its Fresh, Whole Foods and Go.

The first Go opened in January 2018 and featured the debut of its “Just Walk Out” technology. The technology is now used in Amazon Fresh locations, two Whole Foods, sports arenas and a few third-party locations.

The number of Go units is well below Amazon’s original growth projections calling for around 150 by the close of 2020, although the pandemic might have interrupted expansion. In early 2022, Amazon opened some slightly larger formats to target suburban markets and last week indicated more expansion was in the works.

Amazon said, “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.”

CEO Andy Jassy, in January, expressed confidence in Amazon’s brick-and-mortar grocery opportunity. He told Financial Times, “We’re hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side.”

• Amazon closing eight Amazon Go convenience stores in latest tightening of its physical retail – GeekWire

• Amazon is shutting down eight cashierless Go stores – Engadget

• Amazon to close 8 of its cashierless convenience stores – Winsight Grocery Business

• Can this man turn Amazon around? – Financial Times

• Amazon Go is going big(ger) in suburban locations – RetailWire