Amazon does not always get to win. That is twice now over recent years that the Seattle behemoth thought it could roll over the incumbents in London - but got it wrong.
News that all 19 Amazon Fresh stores are to shut down – all but one are based in London – does not come as a huge surprise. In The Standard’s local branch on Moorgate shoppers rarely outnumbered staff, while the food hall in a neighbouring Marks & Spencer was often rammed.
This admission of defeat comes seven years after Amazon closed its restaurant delivery service. That lasted just two years but never made significant inroads into a sector already dominated by Deliveroo and Uber Eats.
There was simply no space for Amazon and very little affection for its rather soulless “Just Walk Out” payment system
This time Amazon chose an even tougher nut to crack. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrison, M&S and Waitrose are formidable long-term operators running on tight margins and with many decades of brand recognition and loyalty behind them.
Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and the Co-op have also carpet bombed London with hundreds of convenience stores.
More recently the arrival of Aldi and Lidl and their rapid roll-out in London has just made the grocery landscape in the capital even more intensely competitive.
There was simply no space for Amazon and to be frank very little affection for its rather soulless “Just Walk Out” automatic payment system.
It may only be the most fleeting of human contacts but it seems the British public get more out of a couple of minutes of interaction at a till than many people assumed.
See also: As Pret loses half a billion, can the lunch king fight back?
My observation, walking past the Amazon Fresh store on a daily basis, was there was almost an aversion to going into a grocery shop named after a tech brand where some shoppers, including myself, were confused about how to pay.
It is no reflection on the food on offer. On my one visit, the sandwich I bought was perfectly adequate. So why did I never go back?
Of course the closure of fewer than 20 convenience stores in London is hardly likely to keep Jeff Bezos awake at night or worry a £2 trillion company. But it is perhaps a healthy thing that even the usually all conquering Amazon occasionally trips up and falls on its face.
