The tech giant announced it will close its four Amazon Go locations in San Francisco on April 1, ending the cashless shopping experience that led to a ban on cashless brick-and-mortar stores in the city.
After opening its first two Amazon Go stores in 2018, the company was accused of discrimination because the store required both a debit card and a smartphone to shop.
The company is also closing four Amazon Go locations in New York and Seattle, though it claims that this isn’t the end of Amazon Go and that new stores will open in the future. “We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores in the US, and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we continue to develop our Amazon Go stores,” wrote an Amazon spokesperson in a statement sent to SFGATE.
The company will work with affected Amazon Go employees to identify new roles within Amazon, such as fulfillment centers.
Amazon’s other local physical stores will close in 2022. Two bookstores in San Jose and Walnut Creek and three of the company’s four-star hotels in Berkeley, Corte Madera and Burlingame have all closed.
Last week we learned that the company put its massive Dogpatch warehouse in San Francisco up for rent, and earlier this year it vacated a 29-acre estate in the Bay Area suburb of Milpitas. Amazon also laid off 263 employees in six of its Sunnyvale offices earlier this year.
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