The produce section inside the new Amazon Go Grocery store on Capitol Hill in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Amazon is planning to open cashier-less “Go” grocery stores in Redmond, Wash., and Washington D.C., as part of a broader grocery expansion.

Traditional grocery stores are also in the works in California and Illinois, according to The Seattle Times, which first reported on the plans. The conventional stores will be in North Hollywood and three suburbs of Chicago. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the stores in California, Illinois, and D.C. to GeekWire.

The Redmond location, at 2010 148th Ave. NE, is listed as “coming soon” on the Amazon Go website. The first Amazon Go Grocery store opened in Seattle in February, offering shoppers a wider selection than the smaller Amazon Go convenience stores with the same cashier-less checkout experience. The Go Grocery store across Lake Washington from Seattle will be in a former Sears.

The expansion plans are Amazon’s latest attempt to expand its physical retail footprint and take on competitors that offer a hybrid online and in-person shopping experience. Since acquiring Whole Foods in 2017, Amazon has expanded the chain’s online order business. The Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service has surged in popularity due to the pandemic.

Shoppers at Amazon Go grocery stores enter by scanning a smartphone app. Banks of cameras and sensors overhead track everything put into a shopping cart, with the help of artificial intelligence — rendering unnecessary the ritual of scanning and paying at a checkout stand. Items are charged to a shopper’s Amazon account shortly after they walk through the exit.

Amazon also operates a grocery store with a traditional checkout experience in California that is not under the Whole Foods umbrella. That style of store will be built in the new California and Illinois locations.

Amazon Go has 187 openings for jobs in the Seattle area, Texas, the San Francisco Bay Area, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Washington D.C., as well as several international positions.

Amazon’s big retail push positions the company to better compete with the sizeable brick-and-mortar footprints of Walmart, Target, Kroger, and others. Those companies have consistently responded to Amazon’s digital pushes around online grocery ordering and delivery.

Amazon posted $4.4 billion in net sales last quarter in its physical stores category, which includes Whole Foods and Amazon Go stores, about 5.8% of its total net sales of $75.5 billion.

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