Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) reopened three Amazon Fresh grocery stores in Los Angeles this week, as part of what the division head says is a revamp for the company.
Claire Peters, who was hired in February as vice president of retail and who now leads Amazon Fresh, was on hand for the reopenings.
Amazon is working to grow its share in the US grocery market, which is estimated at $1.32 trillion. Currently, the company is second behind Walmart in the online grocery market, and the expansion of Amazon Fresh gives the company another foothold in the physical store market as well.
Amazon Fresh was first launched during Covid. Now, as part of the revamp, Amazon has added roughly 3,000 new products and redesigned the layout of stores after receiving feedback from customers that the stores weren’t measuring up.
Peters acknowledged the company has work to do to improve its brand and attract customers but said it offers a unique ease and convenience.
“I’m not naïve in that people are going to love Amazon,” Peters said at a reopening in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
“But do I want them to love us as in actually, ‘They take all that pain out of my shopping,’ ‘They must be reading my mind,’ ‘Gosh that’s such an irritation to take my returns back after Christmas,’” Peters said in an interview. “I want us to get rid of all of them, and if there’s one company who can do that, it’s this one.”
In addition to Woodland Hills, Amazon Fresh stores reopened in Pasadena and Irvine this week. A pair of Chicago-area Fresh stores were redesigned in August.
These moves come several months after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in February that the company would pause the opening of any new Fresh supermarkets and Go convenience stores as part of a cost-cutting campaign.
The Fresh stores certainly have an Amazon feel, featuring Alexa devices where users can ask questions such as where to find certain items.
Feeling like Amazon and feeling like a grocery store simultaneously can be a tricky needle to thread. Peters said the company has a plan.
“We have to make sure we really dial up our fresh credentials because we wouldn’t want customers to think our steak, our milk, our eggs, all our very strong food safety standards, were placed next to a book in the same distribution center,” Peters said. “My vision is actually the omnichannel vision of how we bring that together.”
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