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Did Amazon Really Lower Whole Foods' Prices? (bustle.com)
While Whole Foods "strategically marked down select items like avocados and almond milk, overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent -- since Amazon ownership, according to an analysis by research firm Gordon Haskett." An anonymous reader quotes Bustle:
This hardly seems like big savings, and Gordon Haskett noted that since the initial price cuts in August, the cost of some items have been slowly ticking back up. "The price of frozen foods, for example, was 7 percent higher on Sept. 26 than on Aug. 28, when Amazon officially took over," Abha Bhattarai reported for the Post, which is owned by Amazon. "Snack items had risen 5.3 percent in that period, while dairy and yogurt were up 2 percent. (Among categories where prices are lower: Beverages, down about 2.8 percent; bread and bakery, down 6.8 percent; and produce, down 0.5 percent...)"
For shoppers like me who buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, it did feel like I was saving money. However, one industry insider said there is a strategy behind how prices are cut. "The whole game is that you want the 100 most recognizable things -- milk, apples, bananas -- to be cheaper," Jan Rogers Kniffen, an industry consultant and former department store executive, told the Post. "If you can do that, you can build a perception that the whole store is competitively priced."
From July through September, Whole Foods brought in $1.3 billion in sales for Amazon.
For shoppers like me who buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, it did feel like I was saving money. However, one industry insider said there is a strategy behind how prices are cut. "The whole game is that you want the 100 most recognizable things -- milk, apples, bananas -- to be cheaper," Jan Rogers Kniffen, an industry consultant and former department store executive, told the Post. "If you can do that, you can build a perception that the whole store is competitively priced."
From July through September, Whole Foods brought in $1.3 billion in sales for Amazon.
" overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent " so the yes. /article
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
1 %
in nyc whole foods is in the most expensive rent parts of the city. no way prices are dropping. at least not on the stuff lazy millennials will buy the most of, like frozen foods.
for me, I go there for the fresh fruits and veggies
everyone does the basket thing. wal mart pioneered it. you figure out what people tend to buy in groups. mark down one or two of the items and raise prices on the rest. it's a 20 year old strategy.
Keep giving your paychecks to Amazon, you dumb fucks. Keep going.
I don't respond to AC's.
Meanwhile, crude oil went from $46 to $52, an 11% increase. Unlike what the article suggests, Whole Foods is actually cutting prices, just not relative to the dollar.
They let you buy amber ale on food stamps?
lucm, indeed.
you shouldn't be shopping at Whole Foods to start with.
Whole Foods is not where you go to save money.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"it's a 20 year old strategy."
So, you're a millennial? Cause, grocery has always been low margin with price leaders.
And, Walmart.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Try even further back (1917):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As soon as you had fixed prices that people could choose themselves, this was standard practice.
Why would anybody shop there in the first place? Sounds scammy to me
I knew what the article summary says going in - they probably only cut the price on a handful of popular things, things I probably wouldn't buy there anyway...
However it did get me back into the store just to look at it, so mission accomplished. They actually have several things there I like quite a lot that are unique to the store, so while I don't do much general shipping there I do go back about once a month to get a few things.
I am a little surprised the convergence with Amazon has not meant more though. Not even a little discount for being Prime for example?? Seems like they have a huge potential to make small changes that would make people even a little more likely to come in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It didn't take a genius to see this coming, only someone who had previous dealings with Amazon's so-called Subscribe And Save program. It promised exactly the same lie. They are merely repeating the same tactic in brick and mortar.
Amazon buys Whole Foods and lowers the prices on some items. Amazon gets all manner of free press about the lower prices. Once the initial attention wears off, Amazon slowly raises the prices back to prior levels. This doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that others seem to be surprised at this chain of events.
Jesus...you need to get a real job.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
the answer is no.
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I make $4,250+ per month.
protip: if you feel like you have to include hundreds and below when you bring up your monthly income, you're poor.
lucm, indeed.
Comparable to Kroger prices, where I mainly shop. The other food looks expensive. (I use WF mainly for fast food. One of the few places you can quickly get a wide choice of cooked veggies.)
They moved the tags closer to the floor.
#DeleteChrome
Why would anybody shop there in the first place? Sounds scammy to me
Because in many places, if you want organic this and that and GMO-free this and that, it's the only option because there are no food coops, farmer's markets, or Trader Joe's.
So if you live "in the city" it all depends on if you want organic/GMO-free. If not, you can certainly find a store with healthy food at a cheaper price.
HOWEVER: Where food coops and Trader Joe's DO do exist in close proximity, it's a "status symbol" thing.
Plus, they have a hipster bar with a dozen or so micro brews where you can order hipster pizza by the slice and get a nice buzz while your significant other shops. Sometimes, I'll pay extra for that.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This blind trust and worship of monopolies these days is unprecedented. While people debate fake bogey men political issues, we are losing competition and ultimately our freedoms to a handle full of monopolies.
Even being in middle class, it's distressing to get an $200 bill for a week worth of supplies from Safeway. Upon close inspection, prices are Ok for obvious stuff like milk but pretty outrageous for anything slightly unusual like shampoo. It's also not down to making the margins, as Costco and asian grocery stories obviously manage to survive without such tricks. I can afford to swallow the increase, but I feel really sorry for common people who can't afford to drive to a further away store or just are not educated enough to figure out the nuances, If you have nothing but 7/11 in your neighborhood, you are fucked.
Given that they dropped their price on avocados and that some millionaires and politicians keep attributing the poor millennial's inability to afford to buy houses to their consumption of avocado on toast I would say Amazon's price drop is attempting to single-handedly solve* the housing affordability crisis facing our next generation.
* For those of you who don't get the obvious sarcasm, this was obviously sarcastic.
"overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent "
Most groceries/supermarkets/discounters have less than 1% profit margin, at least in Europe.
reported for the Post, which is owned by Amazon.
Why are we linking to shitty sources that lie, and including their lies in the summary? That Bustle article that's quoted has a clear grudge, they try to paint Amazon as big evil even after explaining the practice is commonplace among grocers. The stltoday article is a straight-up reprint of the original WaPo article that just doesn't link back to the original or the original sources. Bustle links back to the same WaPo article no less than five times, suggesting it's really just a repackaging of the same article, and it is, they just write it with more of an obvious grudge against Amazon. Hey David, maybe take the "editor" bit out of your name, you don't edit anything you fool. You can't even filter out bullshit repackaged month-old stories.
I am not at all surprised by the findings. It succinctly summarizes the retail Food Industry in first-world nations.
During "one of those conversations" ... note that this is purely anecdotical ... a casual acquaintance piped in about a discussion on the day's grocery purchases and people's general food buying preferences. I liked Safeway, due to the quality of fresh meat and produce offered there, and someone said that they shopped at The Great Canadian Superstore, another food reseller in western Canada, owned by the Weston family, a massive conglomerate of food industry companies that dominate the Canadian market. They claimed Safeway food prices were "too high".
I replied that careful shopping (using a list being the most prominent) meant I didn't pay any more and that Superstore meat was of marginal cut quality (the grades were fine; but if you bought, say, a tray of Pork Chops, underneath the nice looking cuts were others that "looked like they were cut with a chainsaw").
Then the acquaintance piped up. He said he and his family had participated in a study by the Canadian Federal Government consumer agency whereby they created a standard shopping list, buying whatever they normally did but sticking strictly to the list they created themselves, and shopping at four major food resellers, alternating by month.
"The overall grocery bill was the same. There was almost no difference. You might save here, but they nail you there. The specific items changed from store to store, with one item lower in price while it may be higher elsewhere, but in the end, taken as a basket of goods, there was no difference. None"
I fully expect(ed) that Whole Foods, which is not "the same as everybody else" price-wise, would have the essentially the same outcome, in that, taken as a basket of goods, the overall price would be unchanged from before the Amazon buyout.
You aren't shopping at whole foods in the first place. So who cares?
from shopping at WF, because I know they'll be more expensive.
The only time that I shop there is as a last resort, when some fruit/veg are going out of season, in the chance that they might have a better selection.
This is one of those lies that I first heard from Trump and he keeps repeating even though it's false. Amazon does NOT own the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and happens to also be the CEO of Amazon. This does not place WaPo under Amazon's control.
Amazon does not own the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos != Amazon.