Amazon is about to open a bunch of grocery stores - and Kroger, Walmart, and Whole Foods should be terrified

Amazon is planning to start opening physical grocery stores in a move that could upend the supermarket industry in the US, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

The stores - known internally as Project Como - will be small, stocked only with fresh items such as produce, milk, and meats, the Journal reported citing sources.

Customers will be able to order items that have longer shelf lives - such as cereal and peanut butter - through a mobile app or from touch screens around the stores, according to the report. 

Amazon is also planning to open drive-in locations where customers can pick up groceries that they ordered online, the report said. The groceries will be delivered to customers' cars by employees using a license-plate reading technology meant to speed up wait times, according to the Journal. 

Geekwire has published photos of what is reportedly one of the first Amazon grocery stores in Seattle. 

From the outside, it looks a lot like a Chipotle restaurant.

 

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.