Permits connect Amazon to former New Seasons site in Seattle in latest physical retail expansion
Amazon is named in electrical permits for enhancements to the previous New Seasons Industry grocery shop in Seattle’s Ballard community, signaling the probably additional growth of the e-commerce giant’s grocery footprint in its hometown.
The business declined to remark in response to GeekWire’s inquiry about its strategies for the site, but the job code in the permits, “Amazon MAC8,” is constant with the inner naming conventions for Amazon Fresh new Grocery stores.
That signifies it very likely won’t be an Amazon Go Grocery store. All those substantial-tech merchants use sensors, scales and equipment understanding to observe what buyers set in their carts, allowing for them to wander out without the need of heading by means of a classic checkout line. Retrofitting an current keep with the technological innovation demanded for an Amazon Go retailer would be a important undertaking.
The much more classic Amazon Fresh Grocery suppliers offer the means to use a substantial-tech grocery cart to pace up checkout, but still give standard checkout lines with cashiers. New Seasons Industry, the prior occupant of the web page, had been the topic of repeated unionization endeavours, so a change to Amazon’s cashier-much less product at this location would have been an ironic twist.
Somewhere else in Seattle, QFC explained this week that it would be closing two shops, in the Capitol Hill and Wedgwood neighborhoods, citing the financial affect of a new Seattle ordinance demanding substantial grocery corporations to pay their employees an extra $4/hour in hazard fork out during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New Seasons opened the Ballard retailer, at 951 NW Ballard Way, in May possibly 2018. Its Portland-based parent enterprise introduced the closure of the retail outlet in December 2019 as part of a much larger merger of regional grocery chains.
The place is part of what could be acknowledged as Grocery Alley on the east aspect of the Ballard community, with a Fred Meyer, PCC Organic Current market, Trader Joes and Amazon New Pickup location all in just going for walks distance.
Amazon has opened nine Amazon Fresh new grocery stores, in California and Illinois, given that the inaugural locale debuted in Woodland Hills, Calif., in August final 12 months. The enterprise has confirmed plans for Amazon Clean suppliers in the Seattle space: 1 in Bellevue, Wash., as to start with described by GeekWire and yet another in Seattle’s Central District at 23rd and Jackson.