Amazon brings its small, quick `Go' store to Whittier
Convenience concept debuts in Southland, with another coming soon to Torrance
Amazon has unveiled another quick-serve retail concept with the opening of its first Amazon Go convenience store in Southern California.
The store opens at 6 a.m. today at 14249 Whittier Blvd. in Whittier, with another coming soon to Torrance.
Like its Amazon Fresh grocery store cousins, Go is equipped with “Just Walk Out” technology, allowing customers to shop, buy what they need, and leave without going through a checkout line or self-service kiosk.
One analyst termed the commerce titan’s newest venture “a distraction” from Amazon’s massive online business.
Small, sleek stores are stocked with name brands
The Whittier store is small, but the layout is clean and open with products neatly displayed and curated in a way that appears decidedly upscale when compared with a 7-Eleven or Circle K market.
“It’s really a modern take on the convenience store,” company spokeswoman Ayesha Harper said. “Most of our customers are busy people who want to get in, find what they need and get out.”
With a total footprint of 4,100 square feet, including 2,150 square feet of retail space, the store offers a broad selection of grab-and-go food and beverage items, with beer, wine (including Amazon’s “Cursive” pinot noir) and spirits, as well as everyday essentials.
The store’s centerpiece is its made-to-order kitchen, which offers nearly 30 freshly prepared breakfast and lunch items, including breakfast bowls, burritos, hot and cold deli sandwiches, salads and wraps.
Customers place their orders at a small kiosk in front of the kitchen area. For a limited time, sandwiches and wraps are priced at $6, while breakfast items are $3.
The store also offers Starbucks coffee, on-tap cold brew coffee and kombucha teas. Self-serve Pinkberry frozen yogurt is also available for $4.99 a cup with free toppings.
Amazon Go reps said the stores are sourcing many products locally, including beers from Smog City Brewing Co. in Torrance and Three Weavers Brewing Co. in Inglewood, and bakery items from Rockenwagner Bakery in Los Angeles.
For Amazon’s e-commerce customers, the Go store offer a chance to return merchandise purchased online, and there are lockers to pick up new purchases. But there are space limitations. “We obviously couldn’t store a couch here,” Harper said.
Critics call it a ‘distraction’ from Amazon’s online sales
Amazon launched its larger Go concept in April 2022 in Mill Creek, Washington. The two new “suburban” stores complement the company’s 28 smallerformat Amazon Go locations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Seattle where the retail space can be as small as 450 square feet.
Amazon hasn’t revealed when its Amazon Go at 22135 Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance will open. That 6,100-square-foot store will have 2,850 square feet of retail space.
Bob Phibbs, CEO of The Retail Doctor, a New York-based retail consulting firm, said the rollout of Amazon Go stores is tracking well below the 2,000 to 3,000 locations the company predicted it would have by now.
“The return just isn’t there,” he said. “Amazon makes all of its money from web services. This is just a distraction.”
The Telegraph reported last month that Amazon has walked away from talks for dozens of additional Amazon Fresh stores in the UK in the face of lackluster sales at the 19 stores it already operates there.
Still, other retailers have also shifted some of their operations to a cashier-free model.
Walmart and Sam’s Club have a Scan & Go program that allows customers to scan products with their smartphones and pay with a credit card registered on the app.
7-Eleven has a similar Mobile Checkout program, and Aldi recently opened its first checkoutfree grocery store in London. Like Amazon Fresh, Aldi’s Shop & Go app uses motion-sensor cameras and weight sensors to track what’s picked up by customers, who are then charged through the app after they leave.