Amazon Go is moving toward the suburbs, starting in Mill Creek

SEATTLE — Amazon Go is headed to the suburbs.

In an effort to reach customers closer to their homes, Amazon announced Tuesday it is launching a new store format, keeping the Amazon Go name and the high-tech checkout experience that lets customers skip the cashier, but losing travel time by expanding into more suburban neighborhoods.

The first spot for the new concept will be a 6,150-square-foot store in Mill Creek in Snohomish County. The first Amazon Go store in Seattle was 1,800 square feet.

“We’re excited to expand our Amazon Go store portfolio with the introduction of a new Amazon Go format,” a company spokesperson said. “We think local residents and commuters will enjoy the ease of our Just Walk Out shopping to quickly and conveniently shop from an expanded selection of tasty, ready-to-eat food items and grab-and-go beverages and snacks in their own neighborhood.”

Amazon didn’t share an opening date but said it will be “in the coming months.”

The company is also opening a store in the new Amazon Go format in the Los Angeles area.

The concept for Amazon Go was unveiled in 2016 and the company opened its first Amazon Go store to the public in January 2018 in Seattle, in a corner of the ground floor of Amazon’s Day 1 skyscraper at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Blanchard Street.

The store was the first to feature Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology that uses a network of computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning to track items a customer takes off the shelf and later charge their account — without ever needing to go through a checkout line.

Now, the company operates seven Amazon Go stores in Seattle, as well as other locations in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

Amazon did not disclose any financial details about the new Mill Creek store.