Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
The Amazon Fresh store in La Verne only lasted a few years.
The Amazon Fresh in Upland, just opened last May, won’t last that long. Amazon:
“After a careful evaluation of the business and how we can best serve customers, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores.”
Not sure how long it will take to decide on the fate of each store, but Whole Foods already has an Upland presence.
We want information and we want it now. Grocery bill balance? Document word count? Tell me!
Last spring I discussed the demise of Amazon’s Just Walk Out in favor of Dash Carts.
Even though the Just Walk Out system was a model of zero friction, it was also a model of zero information.
“It’s masterful, really. You just throw your purchases into your cart, and a battery of cameras record and price everything automatically.
“In reality, a battery of cameras and third world workers record and price everything semi-automatically. But I digress.
“Anyway, all your purchases are recorded and totaled, and your payment method is charged as you just walk out.
“THEN you find out how much you just spent.”
Too late?
In contrast, the lower tech Dash Cart solution—shopping carts with scanners—allows customers to “scan items as they shop, view their basket total in real time, and pay using contactless payment at the end.”
High friction because the shopper has to scan every item instead of letting “AI”—either cameras or low-paid remote employees—do the work.
But the shopper has immediate information.
And I need immediate information while performing Bredemarket work.
Two of my packages are based on word count. The Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service delivers between 400 and 600 words, the Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service between 2,800 and 3,200.
Approximately. I don’t get bent out of shape if the final work product has 3,317 words. And as you know if you saw one of my recent videos…
…I currently charge $500 for the short service and $2.000 for the other. And if a particular work product falls between these two word counts, I charge accordingly.
The upshot is that I have a vested interest in knowing the number of words in my Microsoft Word documents.
There’s only one problem with using fields: NumWords is static and requires me to manually refresh the field to update the current word count.
But Microsoft Word lets you do things several different ways.
Sometimes the answer is right in front of you.
Frictionless.
If you need content of varying word lengths, talk to Bredemarket.
Long-time Bredemarket fans may recall when Bredemarket established and publicized annual goals. I haven’t publicized my overall goals since 2022, but I am publicizing these two tactical goals for 2026 to (1) hold myself accountable, and to (2) enlist your help. Both are awareness goals, designed to bring Bredemarket to the attention of the identity, biometric, and technology marketing leaders who are my hungry people.
In calendar year 2026, achieve 100 WordPress views (as measured by “Most Viewed,” not “Most Downloaded”) for each of the three “essentials” videos:
For your convenience, you can find and view all three videos at a single Bredemarket blog post “Bredemarket Essentials November 2025.”
In calendar year 2026, achieve 1,000 YouTube views for each of the same three “essentials” videos.
Again for your convenience, you can find all three videos in this YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDHu4DNJv1KYQaR9Pvo0z4KzaZZweM02C
You can help me realize my goals by doing one or both of the following (I ask, then YOU act):
For me, 100 or 1,000 annual views of a video is a stretch goal. Even looking at lifetime statistics, my most popular WordPress video, my discovery of the Amazon Fresh Upland opening, has less than 100 views, and my most popular YouTube short, the metal strips that protect palm trees from squirrels, has less than 3,100 views. (I believe my most popular video ever was my Instagram reel of the San Antonio Avenue bridge: over 6,800 views.)
Maybe I should ditch the wildebeests, wombats, and iguanas (and koalas) and concentrate on squirrels. On a bridge. Eating Amazon Fresh groceries.
I’ve talked at length about the new Amazon Fresh store in Upland, even before it opened. Now that it’s been open for over a half year, I was wondering how others felt about the store.
The average Yelp review, based upon 51 reviews as of December 18, is about a 3.5, which is good. But what’s interesting is the polarity of the reviews, with 28 5-star reviews and 12 1-star reviews.
You can’t please everybody, but some of the 1-star reviews are interesting.
“very, very few employees at this location are incompetent and have no customer service skills. also no manners or decency.”
I think the reviewer meant “competent,” but hey.
“No matter what time of day I go there, there are always workers blocking the isles with large carts. That makes it impossible to shop.”
Again, “aisles.” But the reviewer noted a common complaint: the store appears to prioritize delivery orders over people coming in-store to shop, and multiple reviewers have noted the rudeness of the workers fulfilling delivery orders.
And apparently the rudeness does not coincide with speed.
“The order wasn’t ready for pickup hours after scheduled”
However, this particular review was written just a few days after the store opened, so some hiccups are expected.
And those who love the store LOVE it.
“Nice clean store. Cheap prices. The dash cart is awesome. Very helpful employees.”
And
“The store is clean, spacious, and very easy to navigate. Shopping here is simple and enjoyable. The staff is friendly and ready to help, which made the experience even better.”
So it appears that experiences can vary anywhere. Hopefully this store will last longer than the La Verne one.
Update to this post.
According to this month-old Reddit comment, the La Verne Amazon Fresh will close on November 16. Not sure if this is still the plan.
If you authenticate a person at the beginning of a session and never authenticate them again, you have a huge security hole.
For example, you may authenticate an adult delivery person and then find a kid illegally making your delivery. 31,000 Brazilians already know how to do this.
That’s why more secure firms practice continuous authentication for high-risk transactions.
But continuous authentication can be intrusive.
How would you feel if you had to press your finger on a fingerprint reader every six seconds?
Enough of that and you’ll start using the middle finger to authenticate.
Even face authentication is intrusive, if it’s 3 am and you don’t feel like being on camera.
Now I’ve already said that Amazon doesn’t want to over-authenticate everything.
But Amazon does want to authenticate the critical transactions. Identity Week:
“Amazon treats authentication as a continuous process, not a one-time event. It starts with verifying who a user is at login, but risk is assessed throughout the entire session, watching for unusual behaviours or signals to ensure ongoing confidence in the user’s identity.”
That’s right: Amazon uses “somewhat you why” as an authentication factor.
I say they’re smart.
Amazon didn’t get a lot of good news today, and there was another negative news item that people focused on the AWS outage probably missed.
Anthony Kimery of Biometric Update wrote an article entitled “Ring’s partnership with Flock raises privacy alarms.” I offered the following commentary on LinkedIn’s Bredemarket Identity Firm Services page.
Perhaps I’m industry-embedded, but this seems fine to me. Consent appears to be honored everywhere.
“Under the deal, agencies that use Flock’s Nova or FlockOS investigative platforms will soon be able to post Community Requests through Ring’s Neighbors app, asking nearby residents to share doorbell footage relevant to an investigation.
“Each request includes a case ID, time window, and map of the affected area. Ring says participation is voluntary and that residents can choose whether to respond, and agencies cannot see who declines. Users can also disable the feature entirely in their account settings.”
On the other hand, Senator Ron Wyden doesn’t trust Flock at all and says that “abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable.”
Heck, abuse of citizens by the U.S. Senate is inevitable, but citizens aren’t demanding that the Senate cease operations.
(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)
Biometric Update reports that Amazon’s Ring products are offering a feature called “Familiar Faces.”
“In September, Amazon revealed a revamped Ring camera lineup featuring two notable AI features, Familiar Faces and Search Party. Familiar Faces uses facial recognition and lets users tag neighbors or friends so future alerts identify them by name rather than generic motion.”
If this sounds, um, familiar, it’s because Google also has a similar feature, called familiar face alerts, in its Nest offerings.
And like Google, Amazon’s Familiar Faces won’t be available to everyone. If you are, um, familiar withg the acronym BIPA, you will know why.
“The feature is slated for December, though it will be disabled in places with stricter biometric laws such as Illinois, Texas, and Portland.”
It took years, but the long-planned Amazon Fresh grocery store finally opened in Upland, California in May.
But that doesn’t mean it will STAY open.
Four other Amazon Fresh stores will close next month, including one in nearby La Verne.
“At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November….
“The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.”
The La Verne Amazon Fresh store only opened in April 2022, and therefore only had a life of 3 1/2 years.
Which serves as a reminder that a business can have a crowded grand opening one day…
…and disappear the next.
What steps are you taking to ensure YOUR business survives for the long term?
So this doesn’t happen to you?
You may recall my series of several different posts about the long-awaited opening of an Amazon Fresh store in nearby Upland, California.
Meanwhile, they may be CLOSING Amazon Fresh stores across the pond in the United Kingdom.
“The tech giant said Tuesday (Sept. 23) that it had launched a “consultation” with employees about the proposed closure of the Fresh locations in England…”
Why? Because apparently UK shoppers don’t want to come to stores. They want the stores to come to them.
“By early 2026, Amazon aims to double the number of Prime members in the U.K. with access to three or more online grocery delivery options through its partnerships with Morrisons, Iceland, Co-op and Gopuff. This expansion will allow more than 80% of U.K. Prime members to shop at least one of Amazon’s grocery partners.”
Funny innit? Amazon shook things up by abandoning its online-only presence with its purchase of brick-and-mortar Whole Foods and its establishment of Amazon Fresh. Now it is partially retreating into its delivery model.
Bredemarket