The store made me miss being in Target, Trader Joe's, & even Von's.
I was surprised in a bad way to learn that I couldn't get a receipt after I went through the checkout. I was told it would appear on my phone in 30 minutes, but now I'm home, it's been over 50 minutes, & I still haven't found it it, so I don't know if I used the $10 coupon, or if I was charged for a jam I dared to move on the shelf so I could see the freshness date. [UPDATE: the receipt finally arrived and was perfect. See last paragraph of this review.]
More cons and some pros:
Pros: I got a small box of food with items from the salad bar, and almost everything in it is delicious and fresh. I'm eating it as I type this.
The surprisingly large store had many items, including ones I was familiar with.
One employee seemed excellent, but she had too many customers to deal with. She said she could multi-task, but the customer in line glared angrily at me because she stopped scanning her items to answer my questions.
Cons:
Shopping there felt dehumanizing and even kind of scary. I couldn't get or even see a receipt for what I'd paid for. No physical receipts. I wish I'd used the very slow check out lines (only 1.5 of them with human cashiers were open-- really just one, since one closed at least temporarily while I was in it.) Instead, I trusted -- really mistrusted -- a system like the ones used to charge customers for overpriced items in hotel fridges.
Like Aldi, there weren't many people working in this store. I like people and don't like this about Amazon Fresh.
You have to show ID just to enter the area where they sell wine and beer. The person working there didn't know much about their wines & didn't offer to get anyone who did.
There was one excellent employee (mentioned above), though she did seem a little exasperated by the time I was on question #7. (Give or take 2 questions.)
More details about the human cashier option:
I was going to wait in a line for a register with a human. The two customers ahead of me worked at this Amazon Fresh and were finished for the day & on a break. Interesting that the Amazon Fresh employees weren't using the "quicker" no human, pay & exit option. They all seemed to like each other which was nice, but there was a problem scanning first customer's (again, an Amazon Fresh employee's) items and there was no manager around to help the woman at the register, so she had to walk across large store to try & find help. When she didn't return after a couple of minutes I thought I'd brave the "quicker" option without human cashiers, and regretted it.
I had many questions. This store wasn't that intuitive. Maybe it'll improve & catch on, but I hope they rebrand the chain as a less expensive version of Whole Foods (Amazon Market? Amazonaldi?) and make it more like like a traditional human supermarket. Food is personal, yet this place reminded me of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The prices weren't that great either. I think I would've paid about the same for what I got at Von's, even with a $10 off order of $20 more more coupon I used. Not sure what I spent at Amazon Fresh. Still no sign of the receipt. I'll call my credit card company to see how much the charged me.
UPDATE: the receipt came and it had exactly what I ordered which is pretty impressive technologically, but also a little creepy. I gave the store a second Yelp star, and might return to use the next $20 off on a shopping order of $50 or more, when that becomes valid --on May 15, if I remember correctly. read more