Amazon considers grocery business

“Click and collect” sites could be in the works

SAN FRANCISCO Amazon may be taking steps to move its grocery business into new territory: driveup grocery hubs, which would give it a new slice of the highly competitive, $ 800 billion grocery market.

Planning documents and local business- news outlets point to three possible locations for the “click and collect” sites: San Carlos and Sunnyvale, Calif., as well as Amazon’s hometown of Seattle.

The new locations would allow customers to buy online and then pick up the groceries, eliminating the need for Amazon to deliver perishable items. They would complement Amazon’s current grocery offerings, Amazon Fresh and Prime Now.

“It’s very appealing. You can shop at home or at your desk, and then on the way home from work or picking up the kids you just swing by and they bring you out your groceries,” said Phil Lempert, a food marketing expert based in Los Angeles, who did not have direct knowledge of Amazon’s plans.

A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment. The plans are cloaked in mystery, not unusual for Amazon and other tech giants as they test new initiatives.

In California, a project developer has proposed an 11,600- squarefoot Internet retail grocery store on a commercial property site, according to Jennifer Garnett, a communications officer for the city of Sunnyvale.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal, citing planning and loan documents, said Amazon is the retailer behind this location and a similar, proposed grocery delivery pickup center in San Carlos, Calif.

In Seattle, the city in May approved a permit for an unnamed company to establish a mixed- use structure in the city’s Ballard neighborhood, a favorite for tech workers, according to planning documents reviewed by USA TODAY.

Tech website Geekwire said the company behind “Project X” was likely Amazon: It’s using the same architect that Amazon used for its Prime Now delivery hub in Seattle and the same language found in planning documents for the two Silicon Valley grocery pickup locations.

To use the proposed Seattle location, customers would schedule a 15- minute to two- hour pickup window, then drive to a designated parking area to pick up purchased items or walk into a retail area to pick up items, said Geekwire, citing the planning documents.

Amazon currently has about 1% of the $ 795 billion U. S. food and beverage market, a number that’s expected to grow, said John Blackledge with Cowen and Co., a financial analysis firm.

The hubs would eliminate the need for Amazon to deliver perishable items. But for now, the plans are cloaked in mystery.