Amazon shutters last Fresh Pickup grocery store
January 8, 2024 | 1 min to read
Amazon has officially closed its last two Fresh Pickup facilities, signaling the conclusion of its drive-in grocery service experiment. Launched in 2017, these locations allowed customers to order groceries online and pick them up without leaving their cars, a concept that gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially viewed as a significant step in Amazon's grocery strategy, the Fresh Pickup service has now been discontinued, reflecting the company's evolving approach to physical retail.
Amazon has shuttered the last of its two Fresh Pickup facilities, marking the end of its experiment with a drive-in and drop-off grocery service.
At the Fresh Pickup sites, customers would place a grocery order online, then schedule a time to pick up their items. Shoppers would drive up to the store and wait in their car while a grocery worker loaded their bags into the vehicle — seemingly foreshadowing the no-contact shopping that became so normalized at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amazon launched Fresh Pickup in 2017 and opened two facilities in Seattle — one in Sodo near Starbucks headquarters and one in Ballard on the busy 15th Avenue corridor. At the time, the Fresh Pickup concept was considered yet another signal that Amazon was serious about entering the grocery business and one of many brick-and-mortar shopping experiences the company was testing.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Seattle Times