Amazon Go

Amazon Go was a chain of convenience stores in the United States and the United Kingdom, operated by the online retailer Amazon. The stores were cashierless, thus partially automated (having an added option in some locations to manually checkout if desired), with customers having the ability to purchase products without being checked out by a cashier or using a self-checkout station. In 2023, there were 43 open and announced store locations in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, London and New York City. Amazon Go stores were conceptualized and tested by a team of Amazon executives, who constructed a 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) mock supermarket in a rented warehouse in Seattle, before revealing the work to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2015. The first store, located in the company's Day 1 building, opened to employees on December 5, 2016, and to the public on January 22, 2018. The flagship store sold products such as prepared foods, meal kits, limited groceries and liquor. A larger variant, Amazon Go Grocery, opened in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood on February 25, 2020. The following month Amazon began to offer its technology to other retailers so that their customers could make purchases without the involvement of cashiers or Amazon accounts. On January 27, 2026, Amazon announced it would close all Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations, shifting to expanding Whole Foods operations. All remaining locations had closed by February 1, 2026.