Amazon announced that it is opening its second checkout-free Amazon Go store in San Francisco at 98 Post Street, about a seven-block, half-mile stroll from the first one there, on California Street. The new store is two blocks east of Union Square.
At 1,750 square feet, the new Amazon Go store is the eighth of the format opened by Amazon for public access; there is one mini-version being tested in Seattle that is in one of Amazon’s office buildings and only open to employees and their guests.
At 1,750 square feet, the new Amazon Go store is the eighth of the format opened by Amazon for public access; there is one mini-version being tested in Seattle that is in one of Amazon’s office buildings and only open to employees and their guests.
- KC's View:
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One of the interesting things about the Amazon Go stores is that many of them aren’t open seven days a week. The San Francisco stores are located in the business district, and so the California Street store is closed on weekends, and the Post Street store is closed on Sundays. In Chicago, it is the same thing - all three of the stores are closed on weekends. And in Seattle, one of the three public access stores is closed on weekends because of its location.
This points to something important, I think - Amazon isn’t interested in creating showplaces. It wants to open functioning, thriving stores that do business. If there aren’t many shoppers around, it has no interest in keeping the units open … and this is despite the fact that, as checkout-free stores, you’d think the labor factors would be pretty low.
