London Amazon Tech Shop

Amazon opens a grocery shop in London that allows shoppers to make a purchase without using a till.

10:18 06 April 2021

Tech giant Amazon has opened a grocery store that allows shoppers to purchase meat, fish, fruit and vegetable without using a till. Shoppers can use a smartphone app when entering, bag items as they go and automatically billed as they leave the store.

The store, which covers 2500 square feet of space, is Amazon’s first physical store in the United Kingdom.

Matt Birch, director of Amazon Fresh Stores UK, says: “We’re excited to be launching our first store outside of North America in London. We hope to open a few more in London in areas like Ealing and believe it will work in residential areas and city centres.”

Daniel Kornitzer, chief business development officer at online payments company Paysafe, says: “As the UK high street continues to grapple with the impact of Covid-19 and plans for a return to in-store shopping later this year, retailers will need to follow suit and leverage technology such as this to deliver more sophisticated experiences that meet consumer demand in a post-pandemic world.”

Shore Capital analyst Clive Black says: “The key innovation to the outlet is not necessarily what it sells but the way that it does so; this Fresh store is likely to be cash and card less and so it is the payment method that is somewhat revolutionary for the British scene, albeit this is now well set in the USA where Amazon trades from over twenty-five grocery outlets.”