No. The unstaffed store has not failed as a format: Amazon’s UK sites were all in London, in high-footfall areas. The model works where there are customers around the clock and not enough staff to cover shifts: villages, university halls, military barracks, and airports. Location is what decides.
Following Amazon’s closures, many asked, as IGD notes, whether self-service grocery had failed. I have already explained that an unstaffed store does not depend on cameras. This piece is about something else, simpler yet far harder to fix once the store is open: where you put it.
What Amazon closed, and where it put it
On 27 January 2026, Amazon announced the closure of all its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores in the United States (Newsweek), with trade press reporting that UK stores were also included (FoodNavigator).
Theo O’Flynn, an analyst at IGD, noted in May 2026 that Amazon’s autonomous stores in the UK were all in London, in high-footfall locations that, in his words, do not play to the format’s strengths. Once the initial novelty wore off, the operating costs were simply unsustainable. His conclusion: autonomous stores are not a failure, but a solution to specific location problems.
What works in Central and Eastern Europe
The same IGD analysis outlines the opposite formula: round-the-clock demand combined with a tight labour supply. Coop in Czechia now operates more than 100 hybrid 24/7 stores, around four years after opening its first. Coop and Klikni & Vezmi target rural areas, university halls, military barracks, and airports. According to the same report, Coop 24/7 in Hungary and Rimi Express in Latvia have just opened their first stores, while Żabka Nano (Poland) and Penny Pick & Go (Romania) are already established examples of fully autonomous stores.
Also in Czechia, Klikni & Vezmi 24/7 opened its first unstaffed 70 m² store in Brno on 19 February 2026 (Zboží a Prodej).
Where it did not fit (Amazon, UK)
- All in London, in high-footfall areas
- Areas where the format’s advantages did not fit
- Operating costs that proved unsustainable
Where it works (Central and Eastern Europe)
- 24/7 demand and limited available labour
- Villages, rural areas, university halls, military barracks, and airports
- Hybrid with daytime staff or fully autonomous
Hybrid or fully unstaffed: the honest difference
It pays not to confuse terms. Coop’s stores in Czechia are hybrid: staffed during normal hours and self-service outside them. According to IGD, this allows 24-hour opening without driving up labour costs, while reducing the need for external restocking teams. A store with no staff at any hour lacks that support, and replenishment remains the hard part: in the survey by French operator Api that I discussed in that earlier article, empty shelves were the issue customers cited most.
My view is that neither format is inherently better than the other. The hybrid model leverages an existing workforce. The fully unstaffed store opens where that workforce simply cannot reach. Anyone evaluating a market should know which of the two they are buying into.
What our network data shows
uNobo Connect is the operating system for automated 24/7 retail across our partner network. As we published in our network analysis, 46.6% of sales in a single month occurred between 22:00 and 07:00.
- of the month's sales, between 22:00 and 07:00
- 46.6%
Aggregated uNobo Connect network data as of 17/07/2026. Anonymised metrics. Auditable under NDA.
Aggregated uNobo Connect network data as of 17/07/2026. Anonymised metrics. Auditable under NDA.
We should also be clear about what this does not prove. This is Spain, with a single active Country Partner operating under the Flappers brand. It does not disclose individual store locations, nor does it justify extrapolating customer behaviour to other markets. What it does demonstrate is that, across this network, a substantial share of sales takes place when nobody else is open.
What to do with this
For anyone evaluating a country, the useful question is not whether the store relies on cameras, but where there are customers at hours when nobody can afford to keep staff on. After that comes the second question: who restocks, and how often.
Portugal, Italy, France, and Germany are the priority markets for adding our next Country Partner, with the rest of Europe remaining open without an assigned partner. If you would like to evaluate yours, email info@bonoboservices.com or use the form at bonoboservices.com.
Román Suárez, Founder of Bonobo Services OÜ