Amazon is pulling the plug on its UK grocery store experiment. The tech giant confirmed it will close all 19 of its Amazon Fresh shops, just under five years after opening the first branch
in London.
Five of those locations could be repurposed into Whole Foods outlets, the upmarket grocery chain Amazon already owns. If the plan goes ahead, Amazon says it will have 12 Whole Foods stores across the UK by 2026.
Instead of running physical stores, Amazon plans to double down on what it knows best: online shopping. It will lean more heavily on delivery partnerships with Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland, and quick-delivery service Gopuff.
Around 250 staff work at the Amazon Fresh stores. The company has launched a consultation about the closures and says it hopes to redeploy as many employees as possible.
A short-lived experiment
Amazon opened its first till-free grocery store in Ealing Broadway in March 2021. The concept was simple: walk in, pick up your shopping, and walk out—no checkouts needed. Cameras and sensors tracked what customers took, automatically charging their Amazon accounts.
But after closing three stores in 2023, the writing was on the wall. The company now says it made the “difficult decision” after reviewing operations and seeing bigger growth potential online.
John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK country manager, insisted the firm will “continue to invent and invest” in Britain, even as the Fresh stores disappear.
Why it didn’t work
Retail analysts say the move isn’t surprising. Forrester’s Sucharita Kodali noted that UK grocery retail is already highly competitive, and Amazon’s Fresh shops may not have stood out enough—or even been in the right locations—to thrive.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, added that the futuristic till-less tech “always felt a little awkward.” She believes Amazon’s real advantage is convenience through delivery: “As one door closes, many more van doors are set to open.”
Criticism over jobs
Not everyone is convinced. The GMB union, which represents some Amazon Fresh staff, slammed the decision, accusing the company of treating workers like they’re disposable. “Frankly, workers deserve better,” the union said.
Amazon maintains it will try to redeploy staff wherever possible.
A pattern of experiments
This isn’t the first time Amazon has launched and then abandoned a business line. Last year, it scrapped its short-lived security robot project after just nine months. Analysts often describe Amazon as “omnipresent” because of the sheer range of industries it dabbles in—from groceries and parcel delivery to streaming.
Stores slosing
Amazon has not yet confirmed which sites might become Whole Foods locations. The list of Fresh stores shutting down includes:
Aldgate, Angel, Chingford, East Croydon, Euston, Holborn, Hounslow, Hoxton, Kensington, Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Monument, Notting Hill Gate, Southwark, Sevenoaks, Wembley, West Hampstead, White City, and Wood Wharf. Photo by JOHN K THORNE from Universal , Universal, Wikimedia commons.
