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Amazon To Complete $13.7B Whole Foods Deal Monday, Promises Lower Prices and Prime Integration (geekwire.com)
Amazon announced today that its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods will close this Monday, Aug. 28, and revealed how it plans to lower prices and integrate its Prime membership program into the Whole Foods checkout process. From a report: Amazon said that starting Monday, it will lower prices of items at Whole Foods like organic bananas, brown eggs, salmon, ground beef, and more. It also plans to "make Amazon Prime the customer rewards program at Whole Foods Market and continuously lower prices as we invent together," as Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon's consumer business, said in a press release. Amazon will place its Amazon Lockers package pickup machines in some Whole Foods stores. It will also make Whole Foods' private label products available on its website, on AmazonFresh, on Prime Pantry, and Prime Now. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey will stay in his current role, and Whole Foods' HQ will remain in Austin. The grocer will maintain operations under its current brand.
Dear Amazon WFoods, Walmart, Meijer, Kroger, et al.
If you want my money, bring back Milk Crates. All of the 'get groceries delivered' services I've seen use most inefficient process possible. The store pays people minimum wage on the night shift to unpack boxes and palates of food items, arrange them on a shelf so that I can pay someone else to take it off the shelf and deliver it to me.
Cut out the middle man. Pack a milk crate full of what I want in a central warehouse. Pay drives to drop them on my front door. Cut out the electricity, real estate and overhead of running a store. When my next shipment comes pick up my empty milk crates. That way I don't have to breakdown a dozen boxes a week for recycling.
Milk crates are the ultimate utility cargo container. You can fit a single one on the back of a bike. They stack well, you can strap a large number down to a trailer. The large transit vans will easily fit a neighborhood's worth of them. They're strong, light weight and in a pinch can be used to build a college dorm room.
Stores need to be a fraction of the size they are now. I went wandering to see what my local big box store had. DVDs and CDs had almost as much foot print as produce. I can't think of the last time anyone I knew *had* to go get Grownups 2 at 2 in the morning.
They're not buying Whole Foods. They're buying whole foods' distribution network of refrigerated storage and freezers, so they can distribute "whole foods TM" brand amazon crap.