Focus on Dash Carts and Amazon One as Amazon Fresh takes store count to almost 50 across eight states

Amazon Fresh has opened four new stores, including its first in Northern California and locations in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

These all offer Amazon’s Dash Carts and biometrics-based payment system Amazon One.

This brings Amazon Fresh’s store count to just shy of 50 locations in eight US states. 

The Northern California location is in Roseville.

In a LinkedIn post, Leandro Balbinot, VP of Technology at Amazon and CTO at Whole Foods, said: “Continuing our Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores' growth and efforts to build a best-in-class shopping experience that meets all of the different customer needs, I'm excited to announce our new Amazon Fresh store in Roseville, California is open to the public since 22nd August.”

He added: “The Roseville location is the first Amazon Fresh store in Northern California. It offers a wide selection of affordable, quality groceries and a convenient shopping experience.”

“We’re also proud to support the community by creating dozens of jobs in the Greater Sacramento area as well as donating surplus food from the Amazon Fresh store to the Placer Food Bank.”

“Customers can expect to find a wide selection of national brands, high quality produce and protein, as well as Amazon’s private label brands like Aplenty, Fresh Brand, and 365 by Whole Foods Market - all at great low prices and can take advantage of fast grocery delivery and pickup options, while also enjoying ways to make grocery shopping in store more convenient, like the Amazon Dash Cart and Amazon One.”

“Congrats Alexis Martinez (store manager) and the Roseville, CA team.”

“THIS IS HOW ITERATIVE INNOVATION EVOLVES”

In April, we reported that Amazon was removing Just Walk Out technology from its Amazon Fresh stores.

This is being replaced by the aforementioned smart carts.

Just Walk Out will continue to be offered in Amazon Go stores and some smaller Amazon Fresh stores in the UK. Amazon will also continue to offer the tech to third-party retailers.

“We’ve invested a lot of time redesigning a number of our Amazon Fresh stores over the last year, offering a better overall shopping experience with more value, convenience, and selection, and so far we’ve seen positive results, with higher customer shopping satisfaction scores and increased purchasing," said spokesperson Jessica Martin.

“We’ve also heard from customers that while they enjoyed the benefit of skipping the checkout line with Just Walk Out, they also wanted the ability to easily find nearby products and deals, view their receipt as they shop, and know how much money they saved while shopping throughout the store.”

To label the initiative a failure was naive at best and at worst a complete misunderstanding of tech creativity, argued Brand L. Elverston, Founder/Principal at Elverston Consulting.

He commented: “For the pessimists, this is a colossal "I told you so." For others, it is easily understood this is how iterative innovation evolves.”

“The idea, the whiteboard, the alpha, the beta, the limited test, adjustments, reworks, and refits - and learnings all the while. Collateral, unintended innovation often occurs when pursuing some completely different goal.”

He added: “Pursuits such as these are exactly what sparks imagination and creativity. Not all are going to become resounding, earth shattering, take the world by storm events. In fact, few do.”

“When Amazon unveiled the first Amazon Go store in 2016/17, it immediately caught the eyes of countless tech firms and retailers - how many others followed with their own solutions?”

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Physical stores are a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Retail Technology Show 2025, and Business France, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.

Key 2024 dates

Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline 

Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed

30th October-6th November: Judging days

Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.