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Amazon shifts focus to online grocery delivery and expanded Whole Foods footprint.
Amazon will shutter all 72 of its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go physical supermarkets nationwide — most within a week.
The company said in a blog post Tuesday morning that it plans to convert some former Fresh and Go locations into Whole Foods Market stores and double down on its online grocery delivery offerings.
The retail giant’s shift away from its brick-and-mortar grocery experiment is the death knell for Long Island’s two Amazon Fresh stores in East Setauket and Oceanside.
East Setauket, which opened in October 2024 with long lines of eager shoppers, as well as the Amazon Fresh store in Oceanside, which launched in 2022, will close. Long Island’s Plainview Amazon Fresh location closed at the end of last summer, less than a year after opening.
The company operates 57 Amazon Fresh stores and 15 Amazon Go stores.
Most of the Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations will close by Feb. 1. Only stores in California will remain open for an additional 45 days to comply with state labor notification laws.
Strategy shift toward online and Whole Foods
The Seattle-based company said grocers are seeing increased demand for online ordering and home delivery of everyday groceries and perishables, while noting its same-day delivery service reaches more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns.
Amazon said it is responding to changing customer behavior and “focusing investments where we can meaningfully make customers’ lives better and easier.”
“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon‑branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company wrote in its blog post.
“After a careful evaluation, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores.”
Amazon framed the closures as part of a larger re-focus on grocery delivery and its increasingly popular Whole Foods business. Since acquiring Whole Foods in 2017, Amazon has expanded the chain and says it plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years.
Last year, Greater Long Island reported exclusively that Whole Foods is committed to opening a new store in Mount Sinai Shopping Center, located at 5501 Nesconset Hwy, in a space not occupied since a King Kullen closed there in 2019. That project has yet to come to fruition.
Happy beginnings
When Amazon Fresh first dipped its toes on Long Island, local reaction was enthusiastic. In 2022, shoppers lined up early to celebrate the opening of the store in Oceanside. They did the same when Amazon Fresh locations opened in East Setauket and Plainview in 2024.
The stores were pitched for their streamlined convenience —modern grocery alternatives with state-of-the-art checkout technology and integration with Amazon’s broader delivery ecosystem.
Plans for an Amazon Fresh supermarket in Farmingville never materialized, even after construction was largely complete, as the company paused expansion efforts amid a competitive grocery market.
Amazon said it will work to help affected employees find new roles within the company where possible, and that customers can continue shopping Amazon Fresh online.
Top: GLI file photos
