Amazon plans to close its 19 United Kingdom grocery stores in less than five years, as the company moves towards online grocery shopping methods.
Alongside the closures, the e-commerce giant plans to bring five new Whole Foods stores to the UK by the end of 2026, bringing the total to 12 stores.
However, the Fresh stores offered cheaper prices and more mass-market items compared to Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired for US$13.7 billion in 2017.
The changes also include more online shopping options for customers, with plans to allow 80% of UK Prime members to be able to shop with at least one of their grocery partners. These partners include Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland and Gopuff.
The company also said they have launched a consultation with grocery store employees regarding the proposed closures of Amazon Fresh UK stores. Amazon said it plans to offer redeployment opportunities to as many affected employees as possible.
“We’ll be working hard to support any potentially impacted teams throughout these planned changes and are deeply grateful for their dedication,” Amazon UK country manager John Boumphrey said.
“If the proposal moves forward, we’ll support our employees by offering alternative employment opportunities within Amazon wherever possible.”
Amazon opened its first UK store in Ealing Broadway in 2021, but it had already begun the first closure of the sites in 2023, when it closed three of the stores.
This follows a trend of Amazon ending ventures quickly, including its plans to introduce robots that monitored business security, falling apart in just nine months in 2024.
In the stores, shoppers would walk in, pick up what they wanted, walk out, and their Amazon account would be billed for the items they had purchased, which were identified using technology like in-store cameras.
With the business model shifts, the company said it plans to invest £40 billion in the UK over the next three years, creating thousands of full-time jobs, building new fulfilment centres and driving innovation across its operations.
At the time of writing, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares fell 3.04% to US$220.71. The company's market cap is US$2.35 trillion.
