amazon announces plans to build chain of grocery stores

Online retail giant Amazon is moving in a bricks and mortar direction with the announcement of a plan to build a series of grocery stores across the country.

As reported, the effort will most likely see the first such store opened somewhere in Los Angeles later this year, with new stores going up in a handful of other large cities nationally in 2020.

The Amazon plan follows on the heels of the company’s nearly $14 billion purchase of Whole Foods two years ago.
Analysts believe the two grocery entities will not be in competition with each other.

According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, the new Amazon grocery stores would be smaller than most national chain grocery stores, measuring around 35,000 square feet per location.

It is not yet known if those stores will be the result of new construction, or carved out of renovated existing retail space.

But reports indicate that the Seattle-based Amazon could end up spending at least $100 million to build a minimum of twelve stores.

Amazon has additionally launched a series of partially automated convenience stores known as Amazon Go, opening ten of those stores nationally in recent months.

The Amazon Go stores range in size from 450 to around 2,000 square feet.

By Garry Boulard

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