Amazon has been changing its policies over the past few years like many companies and has been reckoning with consumers who seem to not want to go into physical supermarkets as much, CNBC wrote Tuesday (March 8).
Amid increased competition from Walmart, other supermarket chains and apps like Instacart and DoorDash, Amazon is preparing to streamline its own operations.
In late February, Amazon told its gig workers that get items for deliveries that they will soon be working for the company’s Whole Foods division, according to a letter seen by CNBC.
The company will make them Whole Foods employees with longer shifts, as opposed to keeping them as gig workers. Per the report, schedules will be made “up to three weeks” ahead of time and will cover two-week periods. This goes against what Amazon said previously, in which it said it counts “shift flexibility” and the ability to work as little as four hours a week as perks.
“To help continue to offer the best experience for our team and customers, we are transitioning online grocery-fulfillment operations currently operated by Amazon to Whole Foods Market by the end of the year,” the company said in its letter to employees. “This transition will happen slowly for the majority of stores.”
The change is the latest step Amazon has made to simplify its sprawling grocery and physical retail operations, including its two supermarket chains, several convenience stores and apparel stores.
Amazon also announced recently that it was closing down all its physical bookstores in an attempt to focus more on its grocery store operations, including Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market and Amazon Go.
Read more: Amazon to Shutter Physical Bookstores, Focus on Grocery Opportunities
PYMNTS wrote that Amazon counted 24 bookstores, 33 4-Star locations and nine mall pop up kiosks among its physical bookstores.
4-Star indicated a type of store that was like stores like Brookstone, featuring various random items that had been selling well online.
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