Amazon will close all its retail pop-up stores by the end of April, but will also open dozens of new grocery outlets, a precursor to moves which could see it build as many as 3,000 Amazon Go outlets, the company announced.
The e-commerce giant, which launched the small-store concept in 2014, said it had begun to tell employees of the 87 store closures, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The pop-up stores, which are located in malls, and some of its Whole Foods stores, provide items like Echo, its voice-assistant speakers, and Kindle, its e-reader.
“After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program,” the company said.
The announcement follows the conglomerate’s dramatic withdrawalfrom plans to bring 25,000 jobs to a campus in Queens, and which it says is now being re-allocated to its current locations in Seattle, Crystal City and Nashville.
However, the company said it remains committed to developing a brick-and-mortar concept, and it will keep open its existing book stores and so-called 4-star stores, which sell products that customers have rated at four stars or more.
Existing pop-up’s take the form of concessions within existing Whole Foods stores and Kohl’s outlets as well as dedicated units in shopping malls, where customers can try before they buy on popular products such as Fire tablets, Echo smart speakers and Kindle e-readers.