They are apparently changing their grocery business model to delivery.

The physical stores will change to Whole Foods.

Never heard of Fresh and Go. Never seen one either.

It's Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores... but they weren't that widespread. I think "Go" is the one where you could just walk out with automatic payments, where they claimed or implied that it was all automated and it turned out they had people watching cameras the whole time or something, right?

Considering they charge extra on top for "Amazon Grocery" delivery, well, good luck.

Looks they are only in 9 states and none in Connecticut

A google search pulled up fresh and Co, but no listings for Fresh and Go, other than current articles saying they are closing. Weird.

I live near 2 Amazon Freah stores.

Yeah, I've never heard of them either and am not really convinced that this news is "a sweeping shift that could reshape how millions of Americans shop for food". They'll...buy it in a grocery store like everyone else now???

It's not the closing of the stores, it's them recommitting to online grocery shopping/fast delivery like Walmart, Instacart, etc., I would think. I tend to agree that groceries are something a lot of people want to pick out themselves, and because of fees and things I don't think they've made that much of a dent except in perhaps urban areas, but we'll see. Honestly their Fresh stores weren't very impressive besides the coupons they gave out to Prime members, and the rare time I'm shopping on Amazon and come across an Amazon grocery item, I'm more annoyed than anything that I have to pay extra or buy a LOT of groceries to get shipping.

Even so, it's hardly a sweeping change, since it's already available almost everywhere, and with a company as big as Wal-Mart already.

Yeah. Depending on the story you read its 57-58 or 72 stores. So not a huge impact. Bigger impact would be if they shuttered the Whole Foods stores.

There's a Fresh store close to me, and I went a couple times because when I had to return something, I could just drop it off there instead of packaging it. And it turns out they had an OTC medicine that wasn't at nearby drugstores.

I cruised around the grocery part, and it wasn't bad. Not a huge selection, but not all generic stuff either, and they had some prepared foods, fresh pizza, a taco bar, etc. I bought a few things when I was there, but it didn't replace my grocery store.

What was kinda weird was my purchases showing up in my Amazon order history.

Praise be The Singularity.