Amazon’s first full service Amazon Fresh grocery store in the District opened for customers Thursday in Logan Circle at 1733 14th St. NW. It is just the second Amazon Fresh location on the east coast.
It is also the first store with Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology, which lets customers skip checkout lines. Shoppers can grab what they want and just walk out.
When the enter the store, customers scan the QR code in the Amazon app. Anything they take off the shelf is automatically added to their virtual cart, and then charged to their Amazon account when they exit. (Anything they put back on the shelf while shopping also comes out of their virtual carts.)
The technology uses a combination of computer vision, sensors and machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The Logan Circle store follows the late-May opening of an Amazon Fresh location in Franconia, Virginia, the first location on the east coast. Logan Circle also beats the planned opening of a third D.C.-area Amazon Fresh in Chevy Chase, Maryland. That location, in a former Giant Food store, is poised to open soon, though Amazon declined to provide an opening date.
Unlike Whole Foods Market grocery stores, also owned by Amazon, Amazon Fresh stores carry a wide range of national brands, including items you’d never see at a Whole Foods like Coca-Cola and Kraft Mac & Cheese. They also carry local brands, such as Bread Furst Bakery items and Taharka Brothers Ice Cream.
Outside of the three Amazon Fresh stores in the D.C. area — with more coming here — other Amazon Fresh stores are in California, the Chicago suburbs, and one location in Bellevue Washington, outside of Amazon’s headquarters hometown Seattle.
