Amazon Denies Claim It Plans to Open 2,000 Stores

Amazon.com has denied that it plans to open 2,000 grocery stores, two days after The Wall Street Journal reported the opposite, citing sources close to the matter. The news also came two days after Amazon unveiled the new Amazon Go brick-and-mortar grab-and-go grocery store in its hometown of Seattle.

The e-commerce leader said in a statement that it has “no plans to open 2,000 of anything – not even close,” and that it's “still learning.” Additionally, the company said it has no plans to build a 30,000- to 40,000-square-foot store, despite the newspaper's claim earlier this week that it's exploring multiple possible brick-and-mortar store concepts, including a larger, multiformat store, and that it would likely adopt such sizes for these kinds of stores.

Reached again after Amazon's statement, however, the people familiar with the matter reiterated their original statements, but added that the plans depend on how well the trials go.

WSJ made the original statement following the October claim from BusinessInsider.com that Amazon plans to open 20 brick-and-mortar grocery stores over the next two years – though under the Amazon Fresh banner, as opposed to the Amazon Go moniker rolled our earlier this week – and that the U.S. grocery landscape could accommodate up to 2,000 of them over the next decade. Following news about the new Amazon Go format, the grocery industry had mixed responses regarding how successful it would be.