Amazon opens first Fresh grocery store in Woodland Hills

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. - Amazon's first Fresh Grocery store, which opened Thursday in Woodland Hills, includes technological features aimed at improving the customer experience.

Shoppers at the store can use traditional shopping carts for a regular checkout experience or opt for an "Amazon Dash Cart,'' in which they skip the checkout line by placing their bags in the cart, sign in using their Fresh QR code in the Amazon app and exit through the Dash Cart lane to complete payment.

Amazon said the cart uses a combination of computer-vision algorithms and sensor fusion to identify items put in the cart. More information on the Dash Cart can be found at www.amazon.com/dashcart.

Amazon owns Whole Foods, but the new Fresh stores are not supposed to
compete directly with those outlets, which specialize in organic products, the
company said.

"Amazon Fresh is a new grocery store designed from the ground up to offer a seamless grocery shopping experience, whether customers are shopping in-
store or online,'' said Jeff Helbling, vice president of Amazon Fresh Stores.

"We've taken our decades of operations experience to deliver consistently low
prices for all, and free same-day delivery and pick-up for Prime members.''

The store, which used to be the site of Toys "R'' Us, is located at the southwest corner of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Erwin Street within the Warner Center business district, directly across the street from The Village.

It will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

"The redevelopment of this site over the last seven years is a great example of sticking to a business plan,'' said Erwin Bucy of Paragon Commercial Group LLC, which acquired the property in 2013.

"This area of the San Fernando Valley has been in need of a convenient grocery-anchored center for its growing residential community, and we are proud to have worked with the city of Los Angeles and Amazon to successfully deliver what the community needed.''

Originally built in 1970, a portion of the 6.26-acre property was redeveloped into multi-family apartments.