A new supermarket opened in central Croydon this morning that promises value products and, with the use of Amazon technology, no queues and no check-outs.
Open for business: East Croydon’s Amazon Fresh store in Ruskin Square opened this morning
There’s also introductory money-off offers that can save first-time shoppers £10.
Amazon Fresh has opened in Ruskin Square, the mixed development of offices and residential blocks close to East Croydon Station, off Dingwall Road.
Amazon Fresh stores, the company says, “offer a wide selection of products, including its private food brand ‘by Amazon’ and its premium grocery range, ‘Our Selection’, which offer hundreds of delicious items, hot food throughout the day, and tasty on-the-go meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“Favourites such as tasty sushi from Sushi Kano are also available in-store, alongside pastries from the Flour Station bakery which are delivered fresh each morning.”
For customers with a smartphone and the Amazon app, they can enter the store, check in, and then load their shopping bag and get on with their day.
What Amazon calls “Just Walk Out Technology” automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual basket. “When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store,” they say, although at East Croydon there is also scope for more recognisably conventional check-outs if you prefer.
The Amazon Fresh store is also being used as a pick-up point for items purchased on Amazon.co.uk. Items ordered online that need to be returned can also use the store’s Amazon Hub, without needing to package the product or print a shipping label.
The opening of the East Croydon store may be fortuitous timing, coming just a couple of months after Waitrose closed their long-established supermarket nearby on George Street.
Amazon Fresh Croydon is at Unit 1, Ruskin Square, CR0 2WF, with opening hours of 7-11 seven days a week.
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Amazon has a lot in common with senior Tory MPs in that they somehow avoid paying taxes. The Fair Tax Foundation found that in 2021, the company managed to not pay any tax.
The Foundation’s CEO Paul Monaghan said last August that “Amazon paid little corporation tax in the UK, in part because the bulk of their UK income is still booked in Luxembourg. We now have a situation where Amazon UK Services are not only not paying tax, but they are being handed huge tax credits for investment that almost certainly would have happened anyway. This will ensure that tax payments are not only wiped out last year, but this year and future years as well.”,
Amazon expect us to be grateful for the McJobs they create and to ignore the tax burden they leave to fall on us poor mugs, our declining public services that their corporation tax would help maintain and improve, the small businesses they destroy by undercutting them and the roads they clog with their trucks and vans.
How will they be managing to by-pass the Sunday trading hours restrictions which other supermarkets abide by?
The Sunday Trading Laws apply to large shops (over 280 square meters), this is more convenience store sized.