Amazon news
 

I thought about putting this in the WTF thread ..... Amazon is going to buy Wholefoods. :blink:

I read just a week or two ago an article discussing the likelihood of Amazon buying a brick-and-mortar retailer, perhaps one of the troubled department stores such as Sears or JC Penny (which the article totally disconted) or one of the national "dollar" chains, which would give Amazon a great platform for nationwide "deliver to store" service, not to mention warehouses and a large fleet of trucks to expand their own in-house shipping. Wholepaycheck was not mentioned in the article. It might be significant that the Wholefoods deal is a tiny percentage of Amazon's value - less than 3%.

Re: Amazon news
 

Not an obvious tie in.

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According to this report Amazon stock rose by 2.6% so a free acquisition (nearly).

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That's weird too - in most cases when an acquisition is announced, the buyer's stock price goes down. :confused:

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Seems like a reasonable fit to me. Amazon have been trying to get into groceries for quite some time. This might give them the infrastructure to actually do it.

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They are in groceries aren't they? I order stuff from them all the time, although not the "fresh" stuff.

I do hope it doesn't mean Whole Foods prices though.

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But Wholefoods is a niche player with limited footprint, and relatively limited infrastructure. By contrast Kroger has a market cap today of less than twice that of Wholefoods, but with hundreds of stores from coast to coast and in many more cities than Wholefoods.

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Only in a dozen or so cities I think. Their distribution centers are a limitation.

Their (perceived) customer base look exactly how I would think Amazon want their customers to be. Slightly upmarket and "organic". Whatever that means.

Certainly seems to have rattled share prices in the industry.

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More money than sense? :unsure:

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In some ways maybe.

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I use the "prime pantry" which carries things that I need like laundry supplies, cat food, cat litter, and certain shelf/dry goods that the family consumes, and often has options at very good prices. We do most of our shopping at Trader Joe which is good for many things but woefully deficient in others, and this way I can get those other things delivered and avoid the time and expense of driving around to several other shops. I also have a card on that account that gives me 5% back on all purchases.

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Everything I buy comes from Amazon. Ditto on the card.

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:goodpost: I didn't even know this existed.

I'll have to check it out. Could save us some money.

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"Organic?" Also not sure, but I'm always concerned when my wife brings home inorganic lettuce, milk and bread. Has that hard, stony, metalic, gritty mouth feel.

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:cry_smile:

Very mixed feelings in Austin.. hope they keep the HQ here.

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Beginning to search "why did amazon..." on Google immediately predicted what I was going to search. Lots of people must be wondering too.

Whilst I have only shopped at whole foods twice in my life time - Once when I wasn't paying, and the second time when I had a free chicken coupon; I hope they don't ruin the store.

It seemed to fill a niche remarkably well for its customers.

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Amazon just got their patent to intercept in store price checks.
An Amazon patent stops you checking prices online while in a physical store - Business Insider

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Seen on twitter

Jeff Lewis‏ @ChicagoPhotoSho Jun 16

Bezos: "Alexa, buy me something from Whole Foods"

Alexa: "Buying Whole Foods"

Bezos: Shit

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Lol! :goodpost:

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How does this benefit Amazon?

Food items , that are regular staples, and perishable foodstuff is just not a market that lends itself to online shopping and shipping. When you want groceries, you go to the store.

The only avenue that makes sense, is for elderly and or otherwise disabled or extremely busy adults who pick the foods they want online and the store then delivers it. That is already been happening for many years now.

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Probably tied to Amazon Fresh

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Will Jeff Bezos acquisition of Whole Foods turn out to be as beneficial to the food consumer as his purchase of the Washington Post, 4 years ago, has been for the news consumer?

Will he end up feeding our bellies as well as our minds?

The determining factor for Whole Foods, as it's been for the WP - will be how customers respond to its digital manifestation.
And as far as that's concerned I do tend to agree with Boomhauer:


well....i'd be perfectly happy purchasing toilet paper, soap powder etc. online.
But that's not stuff I usually buy at Whole Foods.

Meanwhile - I hope there won't be a deleterious effect on my other go-to-grocery: Trader Joe's

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The purchase makes sense to me, for amazon to effectively compete against the grocery retail giants, especially Wal-Mart, amazon needs stores.

Wal-Mart is already offering curbside grocery pick up at 700 stores, with 1,000 stores to offer it by end of the year, they are also testing same day home delivery of fresh and frozen foods from a handful of stores.

Wal-Mart has the advantage of already having a network of some 4,700 stores offering groceries within 10 miles of 90% of the US population, but they also have the most to lose.

The grocery wars in the US in the coming years will be interesting.


Not sure if Amazon will ever offer a full range of groceries in Canada, but at least in my area they are already behind the times, several large chains offer home delivery of all groceries including fresh and frozen and if ordered by a certain time, same day delivery, as well as curbside pick up.

There is also a higher end organic home delivery grocery company, and with Whole Foods not having many stores in Canada, Amazon will still be behind here.

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But with Wholefoods they're getting a few stores in major cities, when for less than twice as much they could get Kroger with many more stores across much of the US. In short they seem to be paying top dollar for a niche player, which they will need to expand a lot if they want to be a player in the grocery business.

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Long term home delivery only makes sense to be with high margin items, perhaps that is why?

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So set a minimum spend or charge for delivery, it's not rocket science, and you'd think Jeff Bezos would understand that (pun intended!) - that's what Sainsbury does. Spend £40 or pay £3-£6 for delivery.

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I thought Sainsbury's etc are losing a bundle on home delivery?

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That seems consistent with Amazon's business model. :lol:

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There is but one Whole Foods store in all of Mississippi and that one is located in Jackson, MS. Would I go there to shop? Not without a loaded gun. We do pass one in Metaire, LA when I use the Nola airport. Would I order from amazon for fresh foods. Neither Winn Dixie or WalMart offer a selection of mushrooms. Two types only....portabello and button. Forget green peas down here. The only peas they grow and sell are similar in look to lima beans with a black dot in the center or one like that but pink. They don't grown string beans either. I can't see WalMart offering home delivery down here.


I like Kroger's in NY and I like shopping at Stop 'N Shop, as well. The produce was fresh and some of it even local. They both did home delivery for the last few years. I do miss fresh local produce and a store with a large variety of products.

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Don't bank on it. Quite often I get prime pantry credit offers on Amazon and never has it been cheaper than Walmart/HT/Publix.

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Yeah.. I don't think I would be looking to Amazon for groceries if price was a major factor for me.

That said, I wouldn't look to Wholefoods for that reason either, so I guess it doesn't make much difference. :)

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How much profit did Amazon make last quarter from their retail business only?

I know they finally turned a profit last year but it was paltry compared to the likes of Google.

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They've been experimenting with a few test stores that don't have tills. Automatically add/removes items from your amazon cart as you put them in/out of your shopping cart in the store. They've been working on the tech in town.

Would work quite nicely for packaged lunch/dinner foods, bit more of a hassle for fresh bulk items though.

The biggest Amazon news was the quietly killing of the unlimited cloud storage. $60 was a bargain. $20 for 100GB of data a year and images aren't counted, so I switched to that as my redundant backup and it's still not bad value but a little annoying that it was done fairly quietly.

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Stock market still doesn't seem to mind - current share price is $1,001.