Chance for redemption
If you’ve never stepped foot into a Whole Foods before because you felt the high price points weren’t worth emptying your wallet over artisanal cheeses and organic produce, you might want to give them a second chance.
After sealing the $13.7 million dollar deal on Monday, Amazon is the proud new owner of Whole Foods. They’ve already begun lowering prices in their brick-and-mortar locations.
The new duo
Items such as “Whole Trade bananas, organic avocados, organic large brown eggs, organic responsibly-farmed salmon and tilapia, organic baby kale and baby lettuce, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, creamy and crunchy almond butter, organic Gala and Fuji apples, organic rotisserie chicken, 365 Everyday Value organic butter, and much more,” have all seen price reductions said Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer.
It’s a smooth move that will benefit both parties as this will drive more foot traffic into Whole Foods, Amazon gets more memberships, and with that plans to implement incentives for Prime Members in the future as well.
With natural grocery stores popping up all over urban areas, this puts Whole Foods in the forefront of competition, with the added Amazon edge of being infamous for automation and convenience. This acquisition certainly shakes up the retail and grocery industry as stocks fell slightly on Monday after the announcement.
In addition to lowered prices in stores, Whole Foods also plans to include Amazon Echo in their brick-and-mortar locations as a way to upsell Amazon Prime services.
There has been some concern over the range of items that were marked down, but this is only the beginning. As stated in their press release, Amazon hopes to offer more in-store benefits and discounted items as the two companies work out the logistics of the acquisition.
Austin forever
Whole Foods headquarters will continue to be located in Austin, Texas but is stated to have access to Amazon’s data and innovative processes that will eventually be rolled out such as the use of Amazon lockers in some Whole Foods locations.
So far this sounds like the start of a wonderful new relationship.
#WholeAmazon
