Report: Amazon wants 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021

Amazon Go.AP/Elaine Thompson

• Amazon wants to open 3,000 Amazon Go stores across the US by 3,000, according to Bloomberg.
• Go is Amazon’s cashierless store, which features “just-walk-out” technology and payment through its proprietary app.
• That huge number of stores would make Go one of the largest retail chains in the country, and the third largest chain of convenience stores by number of stores.

Amazon Go is going national.

Amazon wants 3,000 locations of the cashierless, tech-filled stores across the US by 2021, according to a new report by Bloomberg. Called Amazon Go, the store features Amazon’s “just walk out” technology, which uses sensors and cameras to track what customers take off shelves and out of the store. 

Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

It sells an array of prepared food alongside grab-and-go convenience store grocery staples. Its key feature is a complete lack of lines to wait in.

Amazon has opened four stores in total since it announced the concept in 2016. The first is in Seattle, on Amazon’s campus. Amazon then opened two more in Seattle, and one Chicago.

Now, Amazon has developed an aggressive rollout plan for the chain. It wants to have at least 10 stores open by the end of 2018, 50 opening in 2019, and then expanding rapidly to the 3,000 number by 2021, Bloomberg reported citing people with knowledge of the matter. 

The 2019 stores would be mostly in major metro areas. Los Angeles and New York have already been rumored as cities to host Go stores.

Nearly 3,000 locations would make Amazon Go the third largest convenience store chain in the US, just under 7-11 and the parent company of Circle K, respectively, according to CSP, an industry publication. It would also give Amazon a much expanded footprint of physical stores in the US, adding to its more than 350 Whole Foods stores.

An aggressive rollout plan suggests Amazon has perfected the tech involved in operating in the stores, which costs about $1 million a store, according to Bloomberg. Some of the most recent Amazon Go locations feature only the prepared food section, and not the grocery selection of the original stores.