Inside the store: Amazon's newest Go Grocery
Six months after debuting Go Grocery in Seattle, Amazon on Wednesday opened a second location of the cashier-free format in nearby Redmond. While the first spot was located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood close to the office-heavy city center, the new location is situated in a more residential area, bordered by strip-mall shopping and prim suburban neighborhoods.
The just-opened store is a cleaner, more traditional retail box than the first one. Whereas customers to the Seattle location enter in prepared foods and have to take a hard right to reach produce and the store’s two tiers of grocery aisles, those who visit the Redmond location enter into the produce department and can shop four long aisles of goods. Prepared foods and meal accompaniments are included in aisles and endcaps rather than carved out in separate sections, giving the shopping experience a more cohesive feel.
There are more baby products in the suburban location, of course. But there are other notable differences that hint at Amazon’s evolution as a physical grocer. The produce department feels larger and has more standalone displays than the first store, which has just two large displays of fresh fruits and vegetables. The Redmond store has a selection of hot foods prepared on-site in the concept's first back-of-house kitchen. There’s also a lot of private-label goods, including Fresh branded products, Amazon Kitchen heat-and-eat meals and a wide selection of Happy Belly offerings covering everything from spices to frozen bagged produce.
Amazon is also leaning into the bag-it-yourself shopping method, with several countertops available for shoppers to reorganize their goods, bags available in almost every aisle and plenty of signage, including a splashy display at the front of the store showing customers how it's done.
Here's a closer look at the Amazon Go Grocery store in Redmond.
