Amazon has opened a new Amazon Fresh store in West Hampstead, a year since its last store launch in the UK.
The store – as per previous launches – features Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, allowing customers to enter through a non-gated entrance and shop for what they need. At the end of their shopping trip, customers open the Amazon App at the exit gate to pay.
The store – in West End Lane – also gives shoppers the option to use a self-checkout till.
A new opt-in feature allows customers to open the Amazon App when they are near the store. A QR code automatically pops up, allowing them to pay when their shopping trip is complete.
Visitors can also pick up and return items purchased on Amazon.co.uk from the in-store Amazon Hub counter and at an automated return kiosk.
The store’s launch came “just in time for the holiday season” Amazon said. An opening deal for customers in the area gives them 20% off every shop when they spend £10 when paying via the Amazon App until 31 December. Local residents can also find the store on Deliveroo and have food delivered to their home or office.
The West Hampstead store has opened a day less than a year since the last Amazon Fresh store launch, in Notting Hill. It brings Amazon’s total physical store count in the UK to 21, all of which are in London except for the Sevenoaks store in Kent.
The company launched its first Amazon Fresh store in the UK – which was its first physical retail site outside North America – in Ealing in 2021. It offered customers a “new convenience grocery format” Amazon said at the time, and the first opportunity for Brits to use its Just Walk Out technology. It reportedly planned to open hundreds of Fresh stores in the UK, but the rollout has slowed significantly.
Last year, the e-commerce giant announced it was closing three Fresh stores; in Ealing, Wandsworth and East Sheen.
The West Hampstead store launch is the first in the UK since the departure last month of Amazon’s global grocery stores chief Tony Hoggett. Hoggett joined Amazon at the start of 2022, ending a decades-long career at Tesco. He spent less than three years at Amazon, departing to join delivery-focused US restaurant chain Wonder as its chief operating officer.
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