Amazon is closing an unspecified number of grocery partner storefronts on Amazon.com, a shift the company says will cut shopping friction as it builds out its own same-day delivery network.
The retail giant confirmed to Grocery Dive on Tuesday that it is shutting retailer-specific grocery pages and moving away from serving as a third-party storefront host for outside grocers.
Shoppers will instead be steered toward whatever grocery options Amazon judges best on its marketplace. The company did not name which partners lose their branded pages, or how many will close.
An Amazon spokesperson framed the change as a direct response to customer complaints about a cluttered checkout path.
"We’re always evaluating how we can best serve our grocery customers. In response to customer feedback, we’re simplifying the shopping experience and evolving how we work with our grocery partners across several countries by transitioning from individual grocery partner storefronts to other collaboration opportunities."
Separate retailer pages force buyers to juggle different fees, delivery windows, and checkout flows. Amazon says collapsing that maze is the point.
The storefront closures sit inside a broader grocery push. Amazon is ramping its own online grocery business, including same-day delivery of perishables.
That network already reaches more than 2,300 U.S. cities and towns, plus parts of Tokyo and London. The company plans to add more regions in Japan and the U.K. and enter additional countries in the coming months.
In short, Amazon is less interested in hosting other chains’ branded shops and more interested in owning the last mile itself.
Past-year moves already pointed this way: unifying grocery operations, widening e-commerce offerings, and shedding brick-and-mortar stores. Closing partner storefronts continues that pattern.
Amazon is not walking away from grocery chains entirely. It says it will keep working with partners in the United States and abroad on other services.
Those include Amazon Lockers and return points inside physical stores, co-locating operations at partners’ stores or warehouses, and selling AWS cloud tools for e-commerce, supply chain, and data analytics.
U.S. names long tied to the partnership program include Winn-Dixie, Metropolitan Markets, and Weis Markets. In Europe, Morrisons has been part of the mix. Amazon would not say whether any of those specific banners are among the storefronts being cut.
The company will warn shoppers before their grocery path changes. A limited number of Amazon jobs are affected; management says it is helping those workers find new roles inside the company.
Key details remain closed. Amazon has not published a list of closing storefronts, a count of pages coming down, a schedule, or a full roster of countries in the “several countries” shift.
It also has not said how many workers are touched, or where. For partner chains, the practical question is simple: lose a branded Amazon page, keep lockers and cloud contracts, and watch Amazon’s own trucks take more of the perishable order volume.
That is a familiar tech-retail bargain. The platform simplifies the cart for the customer, tightens control of delivery, and offers suppliers side deals that deepen dependence on Amazon’s infrastructure.
Markets reward firms that cut friction and own the customer relationship. Amazon is doing both, and grocery partners that once rented a storefront on its site are being told the next chapter runs through lockers, warehouses, and AWS instead.
When the biggest cart on the internet decides one checkout is enough, everyone else shops on its terms.