SEATTLE, Nov 12 — As the owner of Whole Foods and a series of Amazon Go stores, Amazon is continuing its push to become a household name in the retail food industry with the launch of another type of grocery store in 2020.
Soon after publishing a small collection of job postings for a grocery store in a Los Angeles neighbourhood, Amazon confirmed to CNET yesterday that the company is “opening a grocery store in Woodland Hills in 2020.”
While Amazon already owns retail stores that sell food including Whole Foods and Amazon Go stores, this one will be an entirely new type of store; it’s not expected to use Amazon Go technology, which means that customers will be required to walk in old-fashioned lines at old-fashioned checkouts.
Considering that the job postings refer to the location as “Amazon’s first grocery store in Woodland Hills,” it’s likely that it will have Amazon branding.
The company describes the culture of the store as “based on customer obsession, trust, respect, integrity, continuous learning, and fun” — a culture that sounds quite similar to that of Target and other one-stop-shop retail stores that focus on customer experience as much as customer product satisfaction.
Back in March, The Wall Street Journal, too, reported that “Amazon.com Inc. is planning to open dozens of grocery stores in several major US cities.” While the journal originally suggested that the first location could open by the end of 2019, they did get the location correct. It’s likely that their notion of Amazon opening dozens of similar stores across the country is accurate — though not officially confirmed — as well.
Thus far, only four types of job postings for the new store have been published: a Lead, Grocery Associate, Food Service Associate, and Overnight Grocery Associate. — AFP-Relaxnews
