January 12, 2026
Alexeynovikov/Depositphotos.com
What Can Amazon Do with a Superstore?
Marking its largest store to date and the size of a new Walmart Superstore, Amazon is seeking to open a one-story, 229,000-square-foot store in Orland Park, a suburb of Chicago.
Planning documents said the facility would offer both groceries and general merchandise, as well as prepared foods. Customers would also be able to place and receive online orders on-site.
“It’s the best that Amazon has to offer under Whole Foods, Fresh and their online offerings,” said Katie Jahnke Dale, an attorney representing Amazon at a community meeting, according to patch.com, “We like to explain it as: So what does that look like? It’s a grocery store. But it’s purpose-built for what we’re seeing: retail customers demand today to provide a very safer experience for customers. As well as a more pleasant customer experience.”
Jahnke Dale didn’t say the store would employ Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, but implied the concept would include some other innovations Amazon has trialed in its other store concepts — such as in-store shoppers being able to shop and pay via their mobile phone, or use in-store kiosks to purchase items not easily located.
“Nothing that we’re doing here, though, is different than what we all are experiencing in retail stores that exist today,” Jahnke Dale said.
She stressed that the concept’s function is a store rather than a warehouse, with several community residents expressing concerns about traffic. She said, “I want to reiterate, maybe for the fifth or sixth time since I started my presentation, that this is a retail concept, a retail store, albeit with perhaps a larger storeroom in the back, which will allow us to enhance the customer experience.”
The Orland Park Plan Commission last week voted 6-1 in approval of Amazon’s development plans. The project has to be approved by the village board.
Amazon Remains Bullish on its Grocery Prospects, Shows Commitment to Physical Retail
Amazon has been ridiculed for its flagging attempts at physical retail. In March 2022, all 68 of its Amazon Books, 4-Star, and pop-up shop concepts were shuttered. In early 2023, some Amazon Fresh grocery stores were closed, and openings temporarily paused as perishable sales underperformed. Amazon Go closed about half its store base over 2023 and 2024.
Amazon now operates 58 Amazon Fresh stores, 14 Go convenience locations, and more than 500 Whole Foods Markets.
On Amazon’s first-quarter 2025 analyst call, CEO Andy Jassy said he remains “very bullish” about the company’s grocery business.
Jassy acknowledged that the Amazon Fresh banner needed a “broader, mass perishables offering,” but has found some success with a revamp. Whole Foods, acquired in 2017, is “growing meaningfully faster than the grocery industry in general, with a really good profitability trajectory with the changes we’ve made over the last couple years and a great customer experience,” he added.
He further noted that Amazon has found “very promising” results from same-day delivery of perishables. Amazon in December expanded perishable deliveries to over 2,300 cities. Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said at the time, “The selection, value, and convenience of Same-Day Delivery from Amazon makes grocery shopping that much easier for families across the country.”
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Neil Saunders
Managing Director, GlobalData
Brian Numainville
Principal, The Feedback Group
Mohamed Amer, PhD
CEO & Strategic Board Advisor, Strategy Doctor
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Discussion Questions
Why is Amazon exploring a 229,000-square-foot store?
Do larger stores make more sense for Amazon?
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At this stage, the store is more experimental than anything else. However, Amazon has two primary aims. The first is to try and deepen share of wallet with customers and draw in new customers – in areas like Chicago where Amazon is already heavily penetrated this is important. The second is to see whether grocery combined with general merchandise can work – especially as stand-alone grocery stores are an area Amazon continues to struggle with. Whether this works remains to be seen. Bar Whole Foods, Amazon’s track record of physical store concepts isn’t great because they tend to focus too much on technology and not enough on customers and differentiation – and given there are so many physical stores to choose from, those things are critical.
When Amazon opened its first retail stores, many questioned how far this was outside of their expertise. However, buying the grocery store chains was a different strategy. It was not just about retail but also about supporting distribution to deliver grocery items. But a superstore is a different animal. There is a proven track record for other brands (Walmart, Costco, etc.) Does it make sense for Amazon? They will test (and test), and, as usual, they will be fairly quick to decide whether it’s working. My prediction: it will work.
We should agree to disagree. However, Amazon has the funds to keep trying concepts until (and if) they hit on one.
When Bezos bought Whole Foods I expressed interest in the many savvy things they might do with the chain. Fundamentally, though, they did nothing. It may simply be that their digital obsessions blinded them to good opportunity. I think it’s more likely that retailers have quite savvy structures in place so there’s little dramatic advantage beyond doing the basics well. What might happen here? Nothing important. There’s no evidence Amazon has unique insight into stores.
From the outside looking in, Retail brick and mortar seems simple to build and operate. Just ask Eddy Lampert, or the scores of others intelligent well-meaning people who have tried and failed. Now if Amazon were to stuff 220,000 sq. feet with an eclectic assortment of quality returns at really great prices – that’s a treasure hunt that could generate some fun, margin and take care of some of the problems of reverse logistics.
I don’t think that Amazon has the right amount of internal knowledge to run retail. I believe that, hoping they do not screw up Whole Foods, Amazon should stay with their online business and allow brick-and-mortar retailers to operate retail businesses.
I’m confused. Why make a Walmart-esque mega-move before maxing out opportunities with existing assets like Whole Foods (That palm pay thing is darned nifty. Got anything else? Anything?)
Of course, Amazon has the resources to test as many money pits as it likes and we can always wait for the “learnings.”
I’d like to know what the Amazon rep meant when she said that this store would provide “a very safer experience for customers.”
That jumped out at me as well (and not just the wording) : )
Amazon’s culture is imbedded with experimentation, innovation and customer obsession. And this exploration has likely been debated internally with solid numbers and projections. But execution is a different thing. Amazon will need to be clear on its superstore stance and value proposition on the market. Amazon Fresh stance is somewhat improved, but still appears a little murky against grocery chains. For superstores, the margins should look a little better, and Amazon just might be able to showcase where it excels by offering products and hard goods existing on its website now.
Remember back in high school when you had (chemistry/biology/physics) “lab”?
You got to play scientist for an hour – well 54 minutes (or so, depending on how big a campus you had to navigate) – on the pretext that you would learn something. Occasionally you actually did, but if not it was a rite of passage.
Amazon is forever in high school, it seems.
Amazon’s move to test a 229,000-square-foot store isn’t about going bigger for the sake of size, it’s about creating flexibility at scale. For Amazon, physical retail has always been a means to unify shopping, fulfillment, and data, not just sell groceries. A store of this size allows Amazon to combine grocery, general merchandise, prepared foods, pickup, returns, and same-day fulfillment into a single operating model rather than fragmented concepts.
What’s notable is how this format blurs the line between store and infrastructure. The larger backroom isn’t wasted space; it supports speed, assortment depth, and operational experimentation. Amazon has learned that small, tech-forward formats don’t always scale economically. A larger footprint creates room to iterate on POS, mobile checkout, kiosks, and fulfillment workflows without disrupting the customer experience. The focus appears less on headline technologies and more on quietly improving how transactions, inventory, and labor work together.
Do larger stores make sense for Amazon? Only if they function as omnichannel hubs. Amazon’s advantage is its ability to connect physical shopping with online intelligence, personalization, and logistics. When combined with insights from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh, this format can support smarter assortments and faster last-mile delivery. That’s why Andy Jassy remains bullish on grocery. Amazon isn’t chasing store-level margins alone; it’s building a connected commerce ecosystem.
Amazon is not trying to out-Walmart Walmart. This superstore makes sense only as agent infrastructure. If Amazon’s platform agents (Alexa, Rufus) mediate routine purchasing for suburban households, they need owned inventory in large-format fulfillment nodes. The retail floor is optionality during transition; the real asset is a 229,000-square-foot inventory fortress that its agents control. Walmart perfected stores for human shoppers. Amazon might be building stores designed for AI agents that require huge local assortments, which their platform can tap instantly. Different game, different design criteria. The next grocery arms race pits Amazon and Walmart against each other in a battle over who controls the physical infrastructure agents access.
Yep. Different game, different rules, different customer expectations, so different design criteria needed to execute to evolving expectations. So Amazon is again trying to figure out tomorrow’s game, not replicate yesterday’s game. Did anyone think they would give up, even given their spotty track record in physical retail?
A superstore gives Amazon what its executives have acknowledged was missing in earlier physical formats: enough room to separate customer-facing shopping from fulfillment, staging and perishables flow. That separation keeps the store experience predictable while allowing back-of-house operations to absorb volume and variability. Walmart and Home Depot arrived at this model years ago, and Amazon is now aligning its physical strategy with that reality.
That is why the real question is not store size, but how complexity is absorbed. Large retailers can absorb it physically. Smaller and mid-sized retailers absorb complexity by using systems to control order routing, limit inventory exposure and prevent stores from being overloaded.
In that context, size is not excess. It is slack, and slack is what determines whether retail execution holds once complexity sets in.
Amazon’s decision to explore a 229,000-square-foot superstore feels like a logical extension of its ongoing effort to reimagine what physical retail can be rather than a departure from its core omnichannel strategy. By testing a format closer in scale and breadth to Walmart’s supercenter model — where groceries, general merchandise, services, and digital-enabled experiences coexist under one roof — Amazon is signaling that it sees value in consolidated, one-stop shopping that meets a wide spectrum of customer needs. This move isn’t just about more square footage; it’s about creating a retail ecosystem that blends convenience, selection, and experiential elements in ways that leverage Amazon’s data, fulfillment capabilities, and tech DNA.
Larger stores make sense for Amazon as an experiment because they allow the company to learn how its brand proposition translates (or doesn’t) into a physical environment that competes with entrenched big-box players. Walmart’s supercenters have been a standout success for decades precisely because they deliver breadth of assortment, compelling prices, and the convenience of “everything in one trip.” Amazon’s approach — with potential integrations of cashier-less tech (Just Walk Out), robust grocery assortments, entertainment and services, and its own private brands — could either expand what a modern big store can be or reveal real limits to how far Amazon’s retail experience scales physically.
From my perspective, this is an interesting experiment to watch unfold, not a guaranteed blueprint. The challenge for Amazon will be to ensure that scale doesn’t dilute experience — that the superstore isn’t simply “big” but meaningfully better for the shopper. If Amazon can successfully marry its digital strengths with a physical environment that resonates with convenience, value, and discovery, this format could offer a new frontier in omnichannel retail. But the proof will lie in how customers respond — in traffic patterns, trip frequency, basket composition, and loyalty — as well as how Amazon manages the inherent complexity and cost demands of larger physical footprints.
While I always applaud testing new ideas, not sure this makes sense without the deep knowledge of how to run a store of that size. Amazon has never been all that good at physical retail and I don’t see this as any different.
This sounds like about eleventeen different test scenarios all under one roof. And they are all designed to explore next generation retail. Sure, copying a Walmart superstore is a good start, but it’s interesting they are calling it a grocery store with added general merchandise. Groceries…that stuff that needs to be purchased more often than anything else. And warehouse capacity, and delivery capacity, and in a population density that can support all of the above. I love the idea of having about a dozen of these stores all over the country…AND…buying Target as the satellite store organization. That would be coverage.
Call me crazy but who on earth wants to shop a 229,000-square-foot grocery store.
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At this stage, the store is more experimental than anything else. However, Amazon has two primary aims. The first is to try and deepen share of wallet with customers and draw in new customers – in areas like Chicago where Amazon is already heavily penetrated this is important. The second is to see whether grocery combined with general merchandise can work – especially as stand-alone grocery stores are an area Amazon continues to struggle with. Whether this works remains to be seen. Bar Whole Foods, Amazon’s track record of physical store concepts isn’t great because they tend to focus too much on technology and not enough on customers and differentiation – and given there are so many physical stores to choose from, those things are critical.
When Amazon opened its first retail stores, many questioned how far this was outside of their expertise. However, buying the grocery store chains was a different strategy. It was not just about retail but also about supporting distribution to deliver grocery items. But a superstore is a different animal. There is a proven track record for other brands (Walmart, Costco, etc.) Does it make sense for Amazon? They will test (and test), and, as usual, they will be fairly quick to decide whether it’s working. My prediction: it will work.
We should agree to disagree. However, Amazon has the funds to keep trying concepts until (and if) they hit on one.
When Bezos bought Whole Foods I expressed interest in the many savvy things they might do with the chain. Fundamentally, though, they did nothing. It may simply be that their digital obsessions blinded them to good opportunity. I think it’s more likely that retailers have quite savvy structures in place so there’s little dramatic advantage beyond doing the basics well. What might happen here? Nothing important. There’s no evidence Amazon has unique insight into stores.
From the outside looking in, Retail brick and mortar seems simple to build and operate. Just ask Eddy Lampert, or the scores of others intelligent well-meaning people who have tried and failed. Now if Amazon were to stuff 220,000 sq. feet with an eclectic assortment of quality returns at really great prices – that’s a treasure hunt that could generate some fun, margin and take care of some of the problems of reverse logistics.
I don’t think that Amazon has the right amount of internal knowledge to run retail. I believe that, hoping they do not screw up Whole Foods, Amazon should stay with their online business and allow brick-and-mortar retailers to operate retail businesses.
I’m confused. Why make a Walmart-esque mega-move before maxing out opportunities with existing assets like Whole Foods (That palm pay thing is darned nifty. Got anything else? Anything?)
Of course, Amazon has the resources to test as many money pits as it likes and we can always wait for the “learnings.”
I’d like to know what the Amazon rep meant when she said that this store would provide “a very safer experience for customers.”
That jumped out at me as well (and not just the wording) : )
Amazon’s culture is imbedded with experimentation, innovation and customer obsession. And this exploration has likely been debated internally with solid numbers and projections. But execution is a different thing. Amazon will need to be clear on its superstore stance and value proposition on the market. Amazon Fresh stance is somewhat improved, but still appears a little murky against grocery chains. For superstores, the margins should look a little better, and Amazon just might be able to showcase where it excels by offering products and hard goods existing on its website now.
Remember back in high school when you had (chemistry/biology/physics) “lab”?
You got to play scientist for an hour – well 54 minutes (or so, depending on how big a campus you had to navigate) – on the pretext that you would learn something. Occasionally you actually did, but if not it was a rite of passage.
Amazon is forever in high school, it seems.
Amazon’s move to test a 229,000-square-foot store isn’t about going bigger for the sake of size, it’s about creating flexibility at scale. For Amazon, physical retail has always been a means to unify shopping, fulfillment, and data, not just sell groceries. A store of this size allows Amazon to combine grocery, general merchandise, prepared foods, pickup, returns, and same-day fulfillment into a single operating model rather than fragmented concepts.
What’s notable is how this format blurs the line between store and infrastructure. The larger backroom isn’t wasted space; it supports speed, assortment depth, and operational experimentation. Amazon has learned that small, tech-forward formats don’t always scale economically. A larger footprint creates room to iterate on POS, mobile checkout, kiosks, and fulfillment workflows without disrupting the customer experience. The focus appears less on headline technologies and more on quietly improving how transactions, inventory, and labor work together.
Do larger stores make sense for Amazon? Only if they function as omnichannel hubs. Amazon’s advantage is its ability to connect physical shopping with online intelligence, personalization, and logistics. When combined with insights from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh, this format can support smarter assortments and faster last-mile delivery. That’s why Andy Jassy remains bullish on grocery. Amazon isn’t chasing store-level margins alone; it’s building a connected commerce ecosystem.
Amazon is not trying to out-Walmart Walmart. This superstore makes sense only as agent infrastructure. If Amazon’s platform agents (Alexa, Rufus) mediate routine purchasing for suburban households, they need owned inventory in large-format fulfillment nodes. The retail floor is optionality during transition; the real asset is a 229,000-square-foot inventory fortress that its agents control. Walmart perfected stores for human shoppers. Amazon might be building stores designed for AI agents that require huge local assortments, which their platform can tap instantly. Different game, different design criteria. The next grocery arms race pits Amazon and Walmart against each other in a battle over who controls the physical infrastructure agents access.
Yep. Different game, different rules, different customer expectations, so different design criteria needed to execute to evolving expectations. So Amazon is again trying to figure out tomorrow’s game, not replicate yesterday’s game. Did anyone think they would give up, even given their spotty track record in physical retail?
A superstore gives Amazon what its executives have acknowledged was missing in earlier physical formats: enough room to separate customer-facing shopping from fulfillment, staging and perishables flow. That separation keeps the store experience predictable while allowing back-of-house operations to absorb volume and variability. Walmart and Home Depot arrived at this model years ago, and Amazon is now aligning its physical strategy with that reality.
That is why the real question is not store size, but how complexity is absorbed. Large retailers can absorb it physically. Smaller and mid-sized retailers absorb complexity by using systems to control order routing, limit inventory exposure and prevent stores from being overloaded.
In that context, size is not excess. It is slack, and slack is what determines whether retail execution holds once complexity sets in.
Amazon’s decision to explore a 229,000-square-foot superstore feels like a logical extension of its ongoing effort to reimagine what physical retail can be rather than a departure from its core omnichannel strategy. By testing a format closer in scale and breadth to Walmart’s supercenter model — where groceries, general merchandise, services, and digital-enabled experiences coexist under one roof — Amazon is signaling that it sees value in consolidated, one-stop shopping that meets a wide spectrum of customer needs. This move isn’t just about more square footage; it’s about creating a retail ecosystem that blends convenience, selection, and experiential elements in ways that leverage Amazon’s data, fulfillment capabilities, and tech DNA.
Larger stores make sense for Amazon as an experiment because they allow the company to learn how its brand proposition translates (or doesn’t) into a physical environment that competes with entrenched big-box players. Walmart’s supercenters have been a standout success for decades precisely because they deliver breadth of assortment, compelling prices, and the convenience of “everything in one trip.” Amazon’s approach — with potential integrations of cashier-less tech (Just Walk Out), robust grocery assortments, entertainment and services, and its own private brands — could either expand what a modern big store can be or reveal real limits to how far Amazon’s retail experience scales physically.
From my perspective, this is an interesting experiment to watch unfold, not a guaranteed blueprint. The challenge for Amazon will be to ensure that scale doesn’t dilute experience — that the superstore isn’t simply “big” but meaningfully better for the shopper. If Amazon can successfully marry its digital strengths with a physical environment that resonates with convenience, value, and discovery, this format could offer a new frontier in omnichannel retail. But the proof will lie in how customers respond — in traffic patterns, trip frequency, basket composition, and loyalty — as well as how Amazon manages the inherent complexity and cost demands of larger physical footprints.
While I always applaud testing new ideas, not sure this makes sense without the deep knowledge of how to run a store of that size. Amazon has never been all that good at physical retail and I don’t see this as any different.
This sounds like about eleventeen different test scenarios all under one roof. And they are all designed to explore next generation retail. Sure, copying a Walmart superstore is a good start, but it’s interesting they are calling it a grocery store with added general merchandise. Groceries…that stuff that needs to be purchased more often than anything else. And warehouse capacity, and delivery capacity, and in a population density that can support all of the above. I love the idea of having about a dozen of these stores all over the country…AND…buying Target as the satellite store organization. That would be coverage.
Call me crazy but who on earth wants to shop a 229,000-square-foot grocery store.