Amazon is shutting down many of its physical stores.
The e-commerce giant first told Reuters on Wednesday that it's planning to shutter its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up stores in the US and UK.
The closures will affect 68 stores.
"We've decided to close our Amazon 4-Star, Books, and Pop Up stores, and focus more on our Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, and Amazon Style stores and our Just Walk Out technology," a company spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Insider. "We remain committed to building great, long-term physical retail experiences and technologies, and we're working closely with our affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon."
Closing dates will vary by location, and affected employees who choose not to work for Amazon elsewhere, such as at a different Amazon store, will be given severance, the spokesperson said.
Amazon opened its first physical bookstore in 2015. Three years later, the company unveiled its 4-Star store, which only sells products that have customer ratings of at least four stars on Amazon's website. Amazon never officially announced the launch of its Pop Up stores, although it confirmed the opening of one as far back as 2014.
Some of Amazon's brick-and-mortar stores have struggled to find the same success as the company's online business.
In Amazon Fresh grocery stores, the smart shopping carts that allow for cashierless checkout have seen a steady decline in use since their debut in 2020, according to a leaked internal document obtained by Insider. The company has also fallen behind on its ambitious plans for cashierless Fresh stores, having opened just one in the US by late 2021, despite goals to open 33 such stores that year and 580 of them by 2023.
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