Amazon is doubling down on the grocery game. The retail giant has posted job listings for “Amazon’s first grocery store” in the Los Angles suburb of Woodland Hills. The venture will be separate from the company’s Whole Foods subsidiary.
Amazon did not supply many details about the story, only telling Fortune “Amazon is opening a grocery store in Woodland Hills in 2020.” The company added that the stores won’t use the Amazon Go technology found in the company’s brick and mortar locations, opting instead for a conventional check-out experience. One of the job listings is for a food service associate, indicating the store will offer prepared foods as well as staples.
Two years ago, Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and has been increasing its presence in the food service industry regularly ever since. It offers grocery delivery through Amazon Fresh and lets people set up recurring orders of select food items on its site.
Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods caused grocery stocks to plunge, as investors (and competitors) worried about Amazon’s possible disruption of the industry.
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Whether this as-yet unnamed grocery store will be another step in that disruption remains a mystery. While the listings only mention the Woodland Hills location, the Wall Street Journal reported last month it was also planning stores in Chicago and Philadelphia. Los Angeles will seemingly be the test ground for the stores, though, with the company reportedly already having signed over a dozen leases in neighborhoods including Studio City and Irvine.
Amazon did not give a timeline for the store to open. The Journal said that could occur by the end of the year, however.
Source: Fortune