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Amazon Offers Whole Foods Discounts To Prime Members (reuters.com)
Amazon-owned Whole Foods debuted a loyalty program on Wednesday that offers special discounts to Prime members, including 10 percent off hundreds of sale items and rotating weekly specials. "The new loyalty strategy will test whether Amazon's $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods brings much-feared disruption and an intensified price war to the $800 billion U.S. grocery industry dominated by Walmart and Kroger," reports Reuters. From the report: Those perks are available now in Florida and will roll out to all other stores starting this summer. Amazon previously announced free two-hour delivery from Whole Foods stores for members of Prime, its subscription club with fast shipping and video streaming. The new perks could make Whole Foods cheaper than conventional grocers for about 8 million of its customers who already subscribe to Amazon Prime, according to Morgan Stanley analysts. Prime members scan an app or input their phone numbers at checkout to receive the discounts.
is cheaper than Whole Foods, has just as much organic produce, and has union workers that aren't treated as disposible tissues to wipe Bezos' butt with. I'd rather support them than a destructive/disruptive company like Amazon...
Inputting the phone number of a prime member at checkout sounds like a big opportunity for fraud, so I have to think that this is a loss leading measure to drive traffic to those stores. I suppose they'll never tell us how much it helps.
Not only have I had more than one union job, but I come from a union family. Three generations of union members. My grandfather was in the union working for the railroad and my father was a union machinist. When I was an undergraduate, I worked on South Water Market loading and unloading trucks and had a union pin. Since unions got weaker (starting in the late 80s), workers' wages have been stagnant. During the union era, those wages had healthy growth.
Most of the post-WWII prosperity and middle-class growth in the US was thanks to the labor movement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Stopping child-labour and introducing the 40-hour week was the death knell of western society and impoverished the rich.
Apparently.
Amazon isn't in control of that. Hollywood is. They insist that streaming video services be encrypted in one of two ways.
If Hollywood didn't have a stick up their collective asses, you could simply download and install a generic Android Prime Video app and run it on any Android device. But because of Hollywood, Amazon (and Netflix, Hulu, etc) have to put code in their players to detect your device, and if it's not on the Hollywood-authorized list, bomb out.
Prime was $79 when it was introduced in 2005. It just increased to $119 in 2018.
That's a 119/79 = 1.50 = 50% increase in 13 years. Or 1.5^(1/13) = 1.032 = 3.2% per year.
For reference, $79 in 2005 adjusted for inflation passed $99 in 2017. And Amazon announced the price increase the next year. So the price of Prime has been exactly keeping pace with inflation, except Amazon has added a ton of features to it since it was first introduced.
and in nearly every market, big and small.
grocery is the lion's share of walmart's business. they ring up a half trillion annually in revenues. over 55% of sales is grocery. walmart sells more *grocery* than amazon does in total sales of *everything*. walmart knows grocery. they know grocery shoppers. they have leverage with manufacturers that would make even bezos wet between the legs.
not a fan of walmart (or amazon, for that matter)... but this is one area amazon cannot compete in, not yet and not for a long time, not even with whole foods. they aren't going to open thousands of 100,000 square foot stores coast-to-coast. they aren't going to ship 100s of billions worth of grocery orders, including perishables (including frozen, refrigerated, produce and deli), every year, either.
about the only thing that might, possibly, put a dent in walmart's stranglehold of the american grocery market would be a partnership between something like costco, target, and a kroger and/or a national grocery wholesaler like supervalu that has their own stores *and* distributes to other chains and independents located in a lot of the same markets (of all sizes) that walmart operates in. even that would be a long-shot.. walmart isn't going to give up any market position willingly.
They're only "not relevant" because most Americans sympathize with the bosses more than the workers (and they're generally part of the workers).
Was it Steinbeck who wrote that poor Americans see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, not members of the working class?
Amazon isn't in control of that. Hollywood is.
So Hollywood is forcing Amazon streaming to be a piece of shit on non-Amazon devices, but somehow lets Netflix provide high quality streaming even on my grandmother's bloatware ridden Dell Platitude bought at best buy more than a decade ago?
lucm, indeed.
... but I come from a union family. Three generations of union members ...
Me too, grandfather and father. Some of the following coming from a dinner table conversation when I asked my dad why he was on strike. I had visited the picket lines earlier in the day.
Most of the post-WWII prosperity and middle-class growth in the US was thanks to the labor movement.
Yes and no. The labor movements great advances had already occurred before WW2. Post-war labor was coasting on old glories, the important stuff was enshrined into law not labor contracts by then. Labor's important battles had been won. Post-war labor became a "racket" according to my 40+ year union member grandfather, working hard to perpetuate its own existence and doing little for the workers. My eventually 40+ year union member father concurred. Both speak highly of the unions in the decades before WW2, but after, a very different thing. The point about the important stuff being law, that union contracts were more about preserving union power and finances and not so much about the workers, that came from these union members.
Unions became weaker not merely due to politicians but because workers recognized that big labor had become a racket that did little for them, they lost worker respect, they lost influence with workers and as a result lost influence among politicians.
And today, left-wing politicians *talk* about unions, but when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is these left-wing politicians go non-union just like the CEOs. For example the California San Francisco bay area buying Chinese steel for bridge projects.
Post WW2 economic success was due to our main economic competitors being wrecked by the war, post-war spending of wartime savings, and the economic stimulus of rebuilding and feeding various devastated parts of the world. It was a time where nearly any idiot manager or CEO could make a buck, its an incredibly poor time to look at for business and economic examples. As you learn in econ 101, comparison require all other things to be equal. And 1950s America was a very unique atypical situation.
Amazon chooses not to cast to Chromecast not because of Hollywood, but because of corporate struggle.
It's annoying, because I need to do a sloppy screen cast to watch Amazon prime shows on my TV, but it's not Hollywood's fault. I can't cast the Amazon funded shows either.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Speak of stupidity...
Most of the post-WWII prosperity and middle-class growth in the US was thanks to the labor movement.
No it wasn't, it was because the rest of the world destroyed itself (especially Europe) while the US's infrastructure remained completely unscathed. This meant that the USA could scale up its manufacturing while the rest of the world bought practically everything from us. We WERE to the rest of the world what China is today. THAT is why the US saw big prosperity, not because you were giving a cut of your paycheck to the mafia. Similarly, the fact that the rest of the world has built up its manufacturing capabilities means that there are more global competitors, which means fewer buy from us, which means we manufacture less, which means we have less demand for those types of jobs. That, and better technology means less demand for the type of labor that you look at with rose tinted lenses. Besides, it's probably a good thing that fewer people give a cut of their pay to the mafia these days.
is cheaper than Whole Foods
Not exactly a high bar to set. Whole Foods sells to wealthy folks (not price sensitive) in well to do locations and prices accordingly.
has just as much organic produce
You do realize Whole Foods sells more than just organic produce, right? And is the produce they sell of equal quality? My guess is probably not even if it is acceptable.
and has union workers that aren't treated as disposible tissues to wipe Bezos' butt with.
I have nothing against unions. My father was a lifelong union member and that one fact alone helped paid for most of my education. I support the unions as a mechanism to fight management abuse and waste. But the simple fact is that many unions have long ago abandoned workers rights as their primary goal and have turned into an extortion racket that only serve to drive up prices for me as the customer with no improvement in customer service or productivity. If management is actually treating the workers badly then unions are a great answer. Problem is that if a union is successful they lose focus and gradually drive up prices and make the company less competitive because they don't know how to cooperate with management.
So explain to me what your union is doing that makes me care as a customer. I see no evidence that Whole Foods workers are treated worse than workers at other grocery store chains and you certainly haven't provided any. How to they improve prices, customer service, product selection, or in any way improve my experience as a customer?
I'd rather support them than a destructive/disruptive company like Amazon...
And I'd rather have a company that actually gives a shit about serving MY needs. Amazon is forcing a whole bunch of companies to step their game up to keep my business. Say what you want about Amazon, they do customer service very well and they provide a lot of value and are constantly improving and adding services. Companies that do not adopt a similar attitude deserve to go out of business.