Amazon’s Ambitious Plan to Disrupt Convenience Stores—and Maybe Quick Service Restaurants, Too

Executive Summary

• AmazonGo stores are small, cashierless, checkout-free convenience stores that primarily offer on-the-go food options in metropolitan areas.
• Amazon may be able to take advantage of growing consumer preferences for fast on-the-go healthy food options, but will also have to contend with increasing rents and high startup costs for new stores.
• The launch of AmazonGo stores coincided with the acquisition of Whole Foods, the withdrawal of its AmazonFresh pure-play operation from some US regions and the merging of its Prime Now and AmazonFresh operations. These moves appear to support our long-standing view that it is much more difficult to make pure-play Internet retailing work in the grocery category than in nonfood categories