Amazon is closing 68 brick-and-mortar bookstores and pop-up kiosks in the U.S. and UK to concentrate on its supermarkets, including Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, according to a report from Reuters.
“We’ve decided to close our Amazon 4-star, Books, and Pop Up stores and focus more on our Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, Amazon Style stores, and our Just Walk Out technology,” an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg. “We remain committed to building great, long-term physical retail experiences and technologies, and we’re working closely with our affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon.”
Amazon operated 24 book stores, 33 4-star locations and nine pop-up kiosks in shopping malls. It had announced plans to open an additional 16 4-star locations.
Amazon opened its first book store in Seattle in 2015 and has explored other concepts, including “4-star,” which sells toys, household items and other goods with high customer ratings.
