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Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25 Percent Jump In Shoppers (bloomberg.com)

According to Foursquare Labs, which compiled location information from shoppers' mobile devices during the first two days after Amazon completed its acquisition of Whole Foods and compared the data with the same period a week earlier, the electronic commerce company boosted customer traffic to Whole Foods by 25 percent. Bloomberg reports: Amazon acquired the upscale chain last month for $13.7 billion, a move that has brought turmoil to the supermarket industry and sent shares of grocery rivals tumbling. The same day it completed the acquisition, the e-commerce giant cut prices by as much as 43 percent on a range of items. Organic fuji apples were marked down to $1.99 a pound from $3.49 a pound, for instance. Organic avocados dropped to $1.99 each from $2.79. The traffic data is an optimistic sign that Amazon can succeed in the brick-and-mortar world. In some areas, the jump in customers was dramatic. At stores in Chicago, 35 percent more shoppers visited Whole Foods stores, Foursquare found. It's not surprising that curious shoppers visited the stores immediately after the takeover, particularly after a bevy of media coverage, according to Jennifer Bartashus, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. What's left to be seen is whether they will start consistently shopping more at Whole Foods stores.

7 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Avocados by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Come to S. Florida. There's avocado trees everywhere

    Don't forget to bring your snorkel.

  2. Re:The Amazon mantra by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

    They have a trick: their volume goes to 11.

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    #DeleteFacebook
  3. Re:Was whole foods right? by Kierthos · · Score: 2

    More likely, it's "Here's this list of items we're cutting prices on. The most we're cutting any single item's price by is 43%. Most everything else is getting a small price reduction. Let's lead with the 43%."

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    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  4. Curious Shoppers? by link-error · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many of those people were just checking out what actually changed prices? Let me know those numbers again in a few months, then I'll be impressed.

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    -Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
  5. Kiva Systems by Idou · · Score: 4, Informative

    Now Amazon Robotics, was founded by former Webvan employees. Webvan failed because it could not get food to customers before it rotted. The plan was to build miles and miles of conveyor belts. The founders of Kiva Systems learned from those mistakes and built a better way.

    Amazon's move to buy Whole Foods means the technology is now mature enough to lay waste to established grocery market players. Think this is an exaggeration? Make sure you check out some Kiva robots in action before coming to that conclusion.

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    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  6. Re:Avocados by Headw1nd · · Score: 3, Funny

    There's avocado trees everywhere

    Well, now there are.

  7. Re:Was whole foods right? by tomhath · · Score: 2

    More stuff that's labelled as "organic"? Probably, although the grocery stores around me have a pretty good selection. But the real point is that shopping at Whole Foods is like buying designer label clothes.