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After Amazon paused expansion of its struggling supermarket banner earlier this year to reevaluate strategy, plans are back on track to grow the chain’s presence in New Jersey.

Following Amazon Fresh‘s July 2022 in-state debut at the Fashion Center in Paramus, the e-commerce giant revealed plans to open stores in Lodi, Eatontown, Holmdel and Woodland Park, but has yet to do so.

Development of those locations were among the sites put on hold when the company announced in February it was taking time to rethink its brick-and-mortar blueprint to be more appealing to shoppers. Within a few months, Amazon was back with a new game plan, including a revamped store format and expanded online access.

Now, work is reportedly underway to open Amazon Fresh at Plaza 46 in Woodland Park, replacing a closed Fairway Market location, NorthJersey.com reported.

According to the newspaper, permits for the project, which were issued in late August and September, show some modifications to the checkout areas, including the addition of more traditional options along with the previously all-electronic ones. During an interview with the newspaper, Woodland Park acting Mayor Tracy Kallert said the township is “excited and hopeful that the store may open in 2024.”

Kallert did not respond to a request for comment from NJBIZ.

Amazon Fresh may also be coming to Montclair as part of a proposed redevelopment of Lackawanna Plaza, 4th Ward Councilor David Cummings recently shared during a township council meeting.

After Pathmark shuttered its location at the shopping center in 2015, the neighborhood has been left without a supermarket in walking distance.

Lackawanna Plaza developer David Placek, managing partner at Montclair-based real estate investment company BDP Holdings, declined to comment to NJBIZ.

A spokesperson for Amazon said they could not share details about specific stores, including potential timeframes for openings in New Jersey.

Amazon refreshed

Although Amazon has owned Whole Foods Market since 2017, the company has attempted to tap further into the grocery market by expanding its Amazon Fresh banner from online-only into the brick-and-mortar space.

As part of the revamped Amazon Fresh experience announced in August, the company began updating some of its locations in Chicago and Southern California to reduce the technology the chain of 44 stores opened with; if there’s a positive response to the updates, the changes will roll out across the entire group.

While shoppers will still be able to use Amazon’s product-detecting Dash Carts and the cashier-less Just Walk Out technology, Amazon installed self-checkout stations as a way to provide “customers even more ways to save time on their grocery trips and pick what works best for them.”

The remodeled stores will also contain 1,500 additional national and private label products, with the majority being items in the dairy, snacks, health, home care and baking categories, as well as a built-in Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.

During an analyst call in February, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he believes the three-year-old mass market offering presents the company with “a really important and strategic area for us.”

“It’s a very large market segment, and there’s a lot of frequency in how consumers shop for grocery. And we also believe that over time, grocery is going to be omnichannel. There are going to be a lot of people that order the grocery items online and have it delivered to them, and there are going to be a lot of people who continue to buy in physical stores. But you’re going to also see a hybrid of those, where people pick out what they want online and pick it up in stores, or people are in stores. And there’s something that’s not in inventory in the stores, so they go to their app or to a kiosk in order it to be delivered from online. And so, I think having omnichannel is going to really matter,” he said.

As Amazon sharpens its focus on grocery, the company announced last week it will close its two Amazon Style stores located in California and Ohio by Nov. 9, CNBC reported. 

A company spokesperson told the outlet the closure of the tech-infused clothing stores – which had been open for less than two years – will enable Amazon to “focus on our online fashion experience, where we’re offering new, exciting selection at great value and introducing innovative technology to meet the needs of every customer.”

“Physical retail remains an important part of our business, and we’re continuing to invest in growing our grocery stores business, which spans Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go and third-party partnerships,” the spokesperson also said.

Since March 2022, Amazon has shut down 68 other physical retail locations, including all of its Amazon 4-Star, Books and Pop Up stores. At the time, the company said it wanted to pay more attention to grocery and fashion ventures.