Nothing Amazon does makes sense immediately. Only in hindsight does the strategy emerge.
What would be also helpful would be for Amazon to disrupt the wine and liquor sector.
Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
51–60 of 865 posts
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#52Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…
> Here comes store automation and hefty lay-offs?
... or just expand and move people to new stores. Seriously, what's the yearly turnover for front-line positions?
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#53Aw, poor Blue Apron.
Blue Apron is not a good company relative to the other meal kit delivery services anyway. Their recipes are overly simplistic and their whole experience using UX dark patterns limiting which meals one can get in combination turned me off, and misleading people regarding cancellation.
The higher quality meal kits like Home Chef won't have this problem because they give you, for about the same price, more complex recipes with cool ingredients like demi-glace. There are enough things you can't buy in small quantities easily.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trader Joe's could also play a role. Basically also Aldi, just the other part (Aldi North whereas Aldi stores in the US are run by Aldi South). They have the money and motivation to really fight back and know how to achieve the same cost level as Aldi/Lidl.
ALDI Nord and Süd have some family issues and probably won't combine their US ventures. I see the Schwarz Gruppe (Lidl, Kaufland) as the biggest contender in the US. Kroger is probably gonna have a very bad time.
I didn't mean that they'd combine volumes, but both could fight for share. So you have 3 contenders, 2x Aldi and Lidl. Lidl probably has most money to spend but the US market is huge, they can all grow at their limits without threatening each other too much.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#55Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…
Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own.
I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely above average, and probably in the top 25% of industry), and in general they are concerned with long-term employee sustainability, rather than letting employees burn out and quit.
I know that there are some stories about bad experiences in the fulfillment centers, but keep in mind that those positions are temporary seasonal work by unskilled labor. That's a completely different environment than full time employees work in.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#56https://twitter.com/dkberman/status/875701677504024576 "Amazon did not just buy Whole Foods grocery stores. It bought 431 upper-income, prime-location distribution nodes for everything it does."
I don't think that is right, Whole Foods stores are already full of...food. They don't have room for hundreds of additional products, never mind tens of thousands.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
pretty sure that's the partly the motivation behind the acquisition
Probably in the long term. Over the next years, the technology is not likely to be ready for the number of customers a wholefoods can have. But the stores should work well as distribution centers for grocery (and other) deliveries.
Yep it will take a while. But it's a faster and less risky route to market than Amazon branded brick and mortar grocery stores from scratch. And many other synergies like you say
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#58Looks to me like the ultimate war between grocery stores in the US will be fought out between Amazon/WFM (premium, delivery) and ALDI/Lidl (discount, no-frills). As a German I'm amazed by the "food haul" videos on YouTube and the positive feedback for ALDI US (belongs to ALDI Süd), Trader Joe's (ALDI Nord) and Lidl (part of Schwarz Gruppe, they just started in the US yesterday).
Trader Joe's could also play a role. Basically also Aldi, just the other part (Aldi North whereas Aldi stores in the US are run by Aldi South). They have the money and motivation to really fight back and know how to achieve the same cost level as Aldi/Lidl.
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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#59Nothing Amazon does makes sense immediately. Only in hindsight does the strategy emerge. What would be also helpful would be for Amazon to disrupt the wine and liquor sector.
> disrupt the wine and liquor sector
Explain?
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#60This is not good for Instacart. My understanding is WF was their biggest partner and source of revenue. No way amazon will use them.