Amazon Simplifies Online Grocery Shopping By Removing Several Of The Grocers

SEATTLE—Amazon confirmed this week that it is retiring the individual storefronts it hosted for regional grocery partners, simplifying the online grocery experience by reducing the number of grocers involved in it.

“Shoppers told us they wanted fewer choices, and we listened,” said a fictional Amazon customer-experience consultant who described himself as ‘not authorized to speak, but very aligned.’ “The cleanest grocery aisle is an empty one. That’s just design.”

Customers who had used the storefronts reacted with a mix of confusion and nostalgia. “I used to buy my specific regional pierogies through there,” said Marcy Dulles, 52, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. “Now I’m told the experience is simpler. It is. I no longer have pierogies.”

“The cleanest grocery aisle is an empty one. That’s just design.”

The company said it would continue to work with the affected retailers in other ways, a phrase grocery executives said they were still unpacking, along with several pallets of returned inventory.

At press time, a shopper searching for regional pierogies had been shown a 12-pack of phone chargers, which the site said ‘customers also bought.’