Amazon buys Whole Foods - Bezos Watch
Probably. Who knows?
ElizMcCord said:
Does this mean that there's a chance Whole Foods will stop being referred to as *the whole paycheck store?
Btw, I noticed David Hasselhoff has a very large head while making the image above. Either that or The Rock has a small one relative to his body.
ETA -- I take it back, it's The Hoff's hair that makes it look bigger.
Resistance is futile.
lanky said:
He's going to be running our consumer lives, eventually. For 10 years I've said that with exception of certain apparel, fresh grocery, and quick convenience, brick and mortar will be killed by Amazon. And now he's knocking off one of those three...
angelak said:
I added "Bezos Watch" to the thread title. I want to keep up with what this guy is doing.
I heard a preliminary report that said he intends to lower pricing - whether that is done through lower operating costs (more efficient supply chain, labor, greater purchasing volume for better pricing from suppliers etc) or different but more cheaply sourced products (possibly lower quality), remains to be seen.
Either way, both enterprises (especially Amazon Fresh) should benefit from the consolidated geographic footprint and combined supply chain.
ElizMcCord said:
Does this mean that there's a chance Whole Foods will stop being referred to as *the whole paycheck store?
Amazon's Whole Foods deal slated to close on Monday, August 28th. Lower prices on best-selling staples set to start immediately following. Amazon Prime members supposed to get "special savings and in-store benefits".
lanky said:
He's going to be running our consumer lives, eventually. For 10 years I've said that with exception of certain apparel, fresh grocery, and quick convenience, brick and mortar will be killed by Amazon. And now he's knocking off one of those three...
angelak said:
I added "Bezos Watch" to the thread title. I want to keep up with what this guy is doing.
Soon.
The future is here. So cool. Well, maybe not quite yet, but this is the start. Should be interesting.
This and the space race among billionaires reminds me of so many scifi books I've read and movies I've seen. I love it.
I'm not sure how that discourages shoplifting... nor 'sampling' fresh foods which shouldn't happen but always does.
And I find it incredibly creepy that even though I have just about everything possible turned off, the Amazon Go announcement site could tell me my 'recent shopping history' (dating back over 2 years because I don't visit their sites). Shudder.
How are they going to know that someone is a Prime member at checkout? (I'm a Prime member.)
I suppose if they have you logon with your Amazon login, it could work. They might have an app ready to go for Monday. Wouldn't surprised me. Would thrill me, truth be told.
I was wondering the same thing, but my guess is it will be a feature added to the existing app.
Maybe 1-click purchase of your groceries?
Yeah, that's the ticket. I have yet to use a checkout app - they seem too clunky for now, but maybe AZ will change things. (as they've been known to do.)
cramer said:
How are they going to know that someone is a Prime member at checkout? (I'm a Prime member.)
I just went on Amazon to order some stuff. They've completely updated the format of the website. I'm definitely going to Whole Foods on Monday.
(Snort!). I don't have an Amazon account, have only ever bought 1 item from them over 6 years ago and that was from another, unconnected e-mail address.
I've just been sent an invitation to upgrade my 'existing account' to Prime, so I can shop at Whole Foods... um, yeah... 
(I'm not taking up their offer)
Oh, and same junk mail delivery also had a US voter poll survey wanting to know how I rated your president's performance... I've obviously clicked on too many MOL links recently!!!
I think there's going to be an Amazon Prime member discount at WF
drummerboy said:
I was wondering the same thing, but my guess is it will be a feature added to the existing app.
Maybe 1-click purchase of your groceries?
Yeah, that's the ticket. I have yet to use a checkout app - they seem too clunky for now, but maybe AZ will change things. (as they've been known to do.)
cramer said:
How are they going to know that someone is a Prime member at checkout? (I'm a Prime member.)
I love the self-scan/easy checkout at Stop & Shop and this promises to be even better. I'll definitely be checking it out - no pun intended, but I think I'll keep it.
The Grocery Business runs on a pretty thin margin. The companies other than Walmart who don't have extensive warehouse and distribution systems will be most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the go-to way to cut costs is by reducing payroll. It will be interesting to see how Shop Rite with 60,000 employees, most of them union, will fare.
Even with Whole Foods cutting prices, I don't see them becoming very cost competitive with chains like ShopRite. I would expect Whole Foods prices to be more competitive with a Kings than a SR.
We'll see. Regardless, I stopped shopping WF a while back, but I'll head back next week to see what's what.
truth said:
The Grocery Business runs on a pretty thin margin. The companies other than Walmart who don't have extensive warehouse and distribution systems will be most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the go-to way to cut costs is by reducing payroll. It will be interesting to see how Shop Rite with 60,000 employees, most of them union, will fare.
The benefits to consumers will go beyond price. Amazon Prime members will get discounts at WF. Some WF locations will test the concept of enabling customers to receive and return Amazon products at WF locations. Amazon will sell and ship WF-branded products. I don't know if any of that will significantly hurt a strong brand like ShopRite, particularly in the short term, but it certainly doesn't help them.
Amazon promised lower prices at Whole Foods, and The New York Times went shopping to see the result. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/business/amazon-whole-foods-cheaper-prices.html
We just went and definitely some produce items were much, much cheaper. Bananas new regular price .49 lb and avocados said new low price of $1.49 (which I haven't seen them for anywhere in months). They always had good prices on milk, oddly. Dish was still really expensive as were meats. Gallon bottles of water now lowered to match what you'd pay at Shoprite for store brand (.89) Nothing else seemed well- priced to me or noticeably different from before. Admittedly, I don't shop there often so I'm not the best judge.
I was in the WO store-supermarket nerd here- some lower prices, big Amazon Echo display. I still prefer Wegmans, but hate the way Wegmans packages meats in shrink wrap. Apparently, the store was very busy all day.
conandrob240 said:
We just went and definitely some produce items were much, much cheaper. Bananas new regular price .49 lb and avocados said new low price of $1.49 (which I haven't seen them for anywhere in months). They always had good prices on milk, oddly. Dish was still really expensive as were meats. Gallon bottles of water now lowered to match what you'd pay at Shoprite for store brand (.89) Nothing else seemed well- priced to me or noticeably different from before. Admittedly, I don't shop there often so I'm not the best judge.
I have a relatively short list of items that I generally purchase at WF and avocados and bananas are on that list and I needed them, so I was thrilled to see these prices when I was there yesterday. I have had bad experiences with WF milk going bad before the date, so I no longer buy milk there.
So far, my standard grocery stores remain Stop & Shop and ShopRite with intermittent visits to WF or Target or Kings when some specific factor calls me to them (such as needing avocados from WF or already being at Target or in Maplewood Village for whatever non-grocery reason.)
Amazon, which owns IMDb, either insisted or participated in the decision to delete all of the IMDb message boards. Gave all of the IMDb posters about three weeks to deal with the elimination of more than a decade of information, commentary, and, yes, snark that people had posted on the site, a site whose data is often augmented and corrected by user contributions. I'm done with Amazon, if I can help it, but the way things are going, sometimes I can't help it. Went to Wegmans the other day and found it pretty spectacular, but I also like Shop Rite and Stop and Shop.
ETA: I also do not like what I've read about what it's like to work for Amazon, but of course, I wasn't impressed with WF's reputation, either. I wonder if it's going to get worse for WF employees.
FWIW, I believe the IMDB message boards were archived and moved to a Facebook forum.
As I don't have a Facebook account I haven't investigated further.
wait, what?
Elle_Cee said:
Amazon, which owns IMDb, either insisted or participated in the decision to delete all of the IMDb message boards. Gave all of the IMDb posters about three weeks to deal with the elimination of more than a decade of information, commentary, and, yes, snark that people had posted on the site, a site whose data is often augmented and corrected by user contributions. I'm done with Amazon, if I can help it, but the way things are going, sometimes I can't help it. Went to Wegmans the other day and found it pretty spectacular, but I also like Shop Rite and Stop and Shop.
ETA: I also do not like what I've read about what it's like to work for Amazon, but of course, I wasn't impressed with WF's reputation, either. I wonder if it's going to get worse for WF employees.
Does this mean that there's a chance Whole Foods will stop being referred to as *the whole paycheck store?