The US retailer has reportedly walked away from talks for dozens of potential sites for Amazon Fresh stores, after facing disappointing sales at the 19 check-out free shops it already has in the UK.Īccording to the Sunday Times, the company is no longer looking for new locations for Amazon Fresh, halting plans to open hundreds more sites, which use tracking technology to tell which items customers have picked up and allow them to leave without having to pay at a till. That move led DA Davidson analyst Tom Forte to question if Amazon was “losing its soul.Amazon has pressed pause on a major UK roll-out of its till-free grocery stores, as the cost of living crunch forces shoppers to cut back. The company also discontinued its Amazon Smile program, which allowed customers to commit a small percentage of the money they spent to designated nonprofits. The company has run into profit issues in the past year, however, and has begun to look for ways to cut costs, including laying off 18,000 workers this year. Those prices have stayed high as inflation forces more customers to prioritize essential goods.Īmazon, meanwhile, has juggled plans to raise wages, a battle with a warehouse unionization drive, and concerns about faltering e-commerce demand.Īmazon has been building out its Prime service, offering faster deliveries of as little as two hours to Prime customers without a charge.

The extra fees will land at a time when customers are already juggling higher grocery prices.

See also: Amazon’s second wave of layoffs hits thousands of employees across three states “We’re introducing a service fee on some Amazon Fresh delivery orders to help keep prices low in our online and physical grocery stores as we better cover grocery delivery costs and continue to enable offering a consistent, fast, and high-quality delivery experience,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an email. But those charges get higher for smaller orders - $6.95 for orders between $50 and $100, and $9.95 for orders less than $50.

Delivery charges will be $3.95 for orders ranging between $100 and $150, Amazon said.

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