Special Report: Amazon Fresh - Eatontown, NJ (2024)

Amazon Fresh

Opened: June 20, 2024

Owner:Amazon

Previous Tenants:Toys R Us

Cooperative:none

Amazon Fresh has had a bit of a tumultuous history. Analysts expected the e-commerce giant to revolutionize the grocery business when they first introduced their Amazon Fresh concept in 2020 with a store in California. Four years later, not only has Amazon had a minimal impact on the industry, but they've struggled to create a store that resonates with customers. I visited the Paramus location a few weeks ago and found it almost laughably bad, with rotting produce, sparse shelves, and weirdly high prices. (I can tolerate high prices at an independent grocer; there is no excuse from Amazon.) Well, in 2023, Amazon announced the chain was embarking on a revamp of the brand. A few stores would be renovated, the "Just Walk Out" technology would be phased out, and the format and product mix would change slightly. At the same time, new store openings were paused, and many in-progress locations just sat there. Nearly a year later, the first new-format Amazon Fresh store has opened, here in Eatontown, New Jersey.

The roughly 36,000 square foot store opened last week in a former Toys R Us after an unidentified supermarket was announced for the location back in 2021. The supermarket uses Dash Carts, electronic carts that scan items as you shop, rather than the Just Walk Out technology with cameras -- a system that reportedly relied on hundreds of human viewers in India, not AI technology, although Amazon denies that. Obviously, Amazon's past failure doesn't suggest they won't someday take over the market, but I'm failing to see a significant advancement between Paramus, which opened years ago, and this one. (I'll say again that I am harder on Amazon than on a local chain or independent grocer -- Amazon has far more resources and should be running better, cheaper, and fresher stores but instead seems to be content with somewhat high-priced mediocre stores.)

A big difference this time, compared to Paramus: the new decor, which is in fact really nice. The store looks much more inviting than the first round of Fresh stores, but is that enough? (I heard multiple people in the store commenting on the prices as they walked around, checking out the new store for themselves.)

I will also say that I have seen major improvements at Whole Foods lately, which Amazon also owns, with better produce and perimeter overall, much better prices, and a really good grocery/center-store program. None of those improvements seem to have made their way into Amazon Fresh, unfortunately.

Produce is in the front left corner with meat and seafood in the back left corner. Dairy lines the rest of the back wall, with frozen foods in the middle. Deli, bakery, and prepared foods line the right side wall of the store, with a small alcove in the front right corner for a few more aisles, the cafe, and the customer service counter.

The aisles are split in half front-to-back. The selection was noticeably better here than Paramus, but I recall visiting Paramus when it first opened and the selection was rather extensive. Over time, they trimmed a lot of those products away.

Big change compared to Paramus for meat and seafood: there is no service meat or seafood counter. Paramus opened with a service counter for each, but eventually closed them and currently has them simply covered with promotional signage. Again, I'd expect that in a little CTown in Brooklyn, but not in a big store run by one of the largest companies in the world.

The decor continues to look great on the back wall.

A look down one of the frozen aisles in the back half of the store, with HABA in the front half.

The store is quite attractive if a bit cramped, which is odd because it feels like there's less selection here than there should be for a store of this size. Probably it's because the perimeter is minimal and the grocery aisles are the focus.

But again, that's a strategy that works if your prices are very low. Nobody expects service seafood counters in a low-priced discount store, but if you're paying more than you would at the ShopRite a mile away, which has extensive services, then yes, you'd expect more.

On the other hand, that ShopRite is very outdated, and this store is all shiny and new.

And of course, it's much nicer!

In a setup similar to Whole Foods stores, deli/bakery and prepared foods are in the last aisle.

It doesn't look like they're baking in-store, but I'm not sure about that. I didn't see anything that looked freshly baked, and almost everything (even the baked goods in the self-service case, if I remember correctly) is packaged.

Looking towards the back of the store...

You can see here just how small the service counters are. This is it as far as the deli goes. You have one little case to the right and then a few rows of cheeses to the left. Sure, there's packaged stuff in the cases to the right and elsewhere, but this feels extremely small. Most of these execution things would be totally excusable if it were an independent or smaller-chain supermarket, or if the prices were lower. But a ginormous company like Amazon should either be able to execute at an extremely high level, or execute adequately at an extremely low pricepoint.

Looking across the middle of the store.

Here's where the grocery aisles turn to the left and you have two or three aisles that run perpendicular to the rest of the store's aisles. Customer service is on the wall to the far left in the below picture.

Some other Amazon-specific doohickeys are also in this area.

There's one row of lower shelving, with the two aisles in the front here separated from the cafe against the front wall by another row of short grocery shelves.

And self-checkouts and the regular registers (along with a separate spot for the Dash Carts) on the front-end.