Amazon Go heads to suburbs to be near at-home workers
Online-shopping giant Amazon is expanding its brick-and-mortar presence with a new c-store style format aimed at serving customers in suburban-area locations. Amazon Go cashierless convenience stores will open in the suburbs to capture work-from-home shoppers, as reported by Business Insider.
The first Go location for the new concept will open soon in Mill Creek, WA, which is home to about 20,000 people. It will encompass 6,150 square feet in total, of which 3,240 square feet will be front-of-house space, compared with 1,800 square feet for the first Amazon Go, which opened in Seattle in 2018.
Amazon will also open a Go store near Los Angeles in the next few months, BI reported. There are now around 39 Amazon Go stores nationwide.
The newer suburban outlets will use the same cashierless Just Walk Out technology in other Amazon Go stores, and at some Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market locations.
Amazon’s reasoning for opening the suburban Go stores, outside the working hubs of city centres, is likely due to more people working from home and spending less time at the office since the start of the pandemic. BI also reported that Amazon’s estimated cost to enable a store with cashierless technology has dropped by 96% since 2017, from $4 million to $159,000 for 1,000-sq.ft. section.
