Breaking News: Amazon buys Whole Foods

[giantsfan2016]

Amazon has bought Whole Foods.

http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/ct-amazon-buying-whole-foods-20170616-story.html

This can't be a good thing.

[mixedday]

I wonder if they will offer a 5% discount off total purchase to Amazon Prime customers. Similarly, Target offers 5% off total purchase for those that use the Target credit card.

Other than that, I wonder how much will noticeably change. Maybe Amazon will close the dingy older stores that Whole Foods operates, and then have less hot bar choices and make room for more shelf life product and keep prices lower, in the larger, newer stores.

Originally, I was thinking it could just totally change it drastically to Amazon Fresh (to eliminate the Whole Paycheck reference) and integrate it well into Amazon, but then there would be a discrepancy in that the brick and mortar stores would sell items without artificial ingredients and not carry products like regular Tide, but Amazon would still want to sell them online.

I've seen at Whole Foods the bins for Compost, etc. but people just throw away items that should go in Landfill in them. I assume having all those bins out creates more work for the employees managing multiple bins, all for a cause, but if people don't care or don't do it right, what's the point. The people that supported Trump (over 1/2 the country) like scoff off the environment concern anyways and likely view the way Whole Foods does its business as elitist. Wegmans keeps it simple with only landfill and recycle, even though their massive stores obviously have room for more bins.

[retailisking]

I wonder if they will offer a 5% discount off total purchase to Amazon Prime customers.

Kevin Coupe is thinking along the same lines:
http://www.morningnewsbeat.com/News/Detail/52267/2017-06-16/

[TheFugitive]

Amazon has big plans not only in the area of home delivery of groceries, but in a project
to allow you to order prepared gourmet meals and have them delivered.

The Whole Foods stores look to be the future local distribution nodes.

[retailisking]

Some are suggesting the WFM is the solution for Amazon's "last mile" distribution issues. AMZN didn't spend $13.7 billion just for 431 distribution hubs; Bezos has larger ambitions for WFM.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

This can't be a good thing.

That's also what they said when Toys "R" Us joined Amazon.

[retailisking]

This can't be a good thing.

That's also what they said when Toys "R" Us joined Amazon.

You mean they weren't right? ::grin::

[retailisking]

Whole Foods was once mentioned as a possible choice for Target to outsource its grocery departments
http://www.retaildive.com/news/how-amazons-whole-foods-deal-could-spoil-targets-grocery-ambitions/445388/

[FitchMike26]

My problem with Target's grocery business is the constant inconsistency.

My favorite TV dinner (which every single grocery stores I've ever been inside carries) isn't available at any of the Targets in Eastern Pennsylvania. But if I venture to Pittsburgh or Delaware, there it is on the shelf.

Also, the prices aren't impressive at all. They either need to compete on price, or selection. They compete on neither in my opinion!

[giantsfan2016]

Also, the prices aren't impressive at all. They either need to compete on price, or selection. They compete on neither in my opinion!

Heck yeah bro. I remember when they started selling fresh produce at my local Southington, Connecticut Targer. Bananas were something like 24 cents each! That was so strange to me. Every grocery store I've worked at/shopped at sells bananas by the pound, not each. The only other place I ever saw bananas sold by each is at the Food Bag Convenience Store at the gas station where I buy my gas.

[BillyGr]

Also, the prices aren't impressive at all. They either need to compete on price, or selection. They compete on neither in my opinion!

Heck yeah bro. I remember when they started selling fresh produce at my local Southington, Connecticut Targer. Bananas were something like 24 cents each! That was so strange to me. Every grocery store I've worked at/shopped at sells bananas by the pound, not each. The only other place I ever saw bananas sold by each is at the Food Bag Convenience Store at the gas station where I buy my gas.

If I'm not mistaken, Trader Joe's is the same - they simply don't have the scales at the registers to weigh things, so they are either by the piece or (like meat items) pre weighed and stickered elsewhere or in the back someplace.

[FitchMike26]

I frequently buy a single banana, which is priced at 49 cents a pound at Wegmans or Giant-Carlisle.
It almost always comes out to 22 cents a banana.