Amazon Will Open Grocery Stores and One Will Come to DC

• March 4th 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

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In addition to welcoming an Amazon campus across the Potomac River, DC residents may also be shopping for their groceries in an Amazon store at this time next year.

On Friday, news broke that the online retailer behemoth plans to expand its physical footprint by creating a line of grocery stores. These plans are in addition to and separate from the company's purchase of Whole Foods in 2017. 

The first Amazon grocery store would open in Los Angeles towards the end of the year. Leases for the next two locations are already signed, and those locations will open in 2020. Of the first dozen-plus locations, there will also be one in DC.

The stores will run about 35,000 square feet in size and will carry more mass-market food, taking them out of direct competition with Whole Foods. It is unclear what the new grocery chain will be called and where DC falls in the line of prospective locations, although Amazon is said to be interested in moving into new developments or soon-to-be-vacant retail spaces.

Reportedly, the company is also interested in acquiring small regional grocery chains. Also unclear is whether the stores will be cashierless like the burgeoning Amazon Go chain.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/amazon-aims-to-add-grocery-stores-to-its-offerings/15077.