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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#141

Post by rainbowmverse »

ccorda wrote: post #106
maxerickson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Place an order by noon for groceries plus anything you want from Amazon. Amazon fills up truck(s) at whatehouse and drops off at local Whole Foods. Stop by on your way home from work and they bring your items to your car. You get free same day delivery. Amazon just greatly saved on last mile delivery costs. That's the value of those nodes without having to store all the inventory.

I'm closer to Whole Foods' nearest distribution center than an actual Whole Foods. The nearest Whole Foods is almost 40 miles away.

If this works out for Amazon, I wouldn't be surprised to see Walmart try and buy Trader Joe's. They own Aldi, which has made a big push to compete with Walmart's reach outside cities. The nearest Aldi is closer than Walmart, and that's already not far away.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#142

Post by dx034 »

needlessly wrote: post #115
blantonl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* distribution network * store stock * employees * high end real estate Sounds like a great deal for Amazon

you can't really buy employees. They can choose to quit right after.

And they don't own the real estate so that point isn't valid either. Not sure about trucking but would be surprised if they own their whole distribution network.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#143

Post by dkrich »

I don't mean to be a naysayer, I don't really know what this means. But with all of the euphoria I'm hearing regarding Amazon and the doom-and-gloom regarding "traditional" grocers, I can't help but remind myself how horribly bad people are at predicting the future. Most of the people I'm hearing make predictions about what this means have been wrong about everything to this point.

Not saying it won't be a game-changer, but it is fascinating to watch people extrapolate this out to the extremes as soon as the news hits the ticker.

To put it another way- if it were that obvious that buying Whole Foods was going to make Amazon the dominant grocery seller, why weren't people predicting that they would do it all along and asking what they were waiting for? It isn't until Amazon acts that people say "Oh yeah, that was the right move."

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#145

Post by dexterdog »

dkural wrote: post #84
dexterdog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking exactly the same thing except that WF might be a less profitable business.

I think in the long run you are likely be right - at scale software margins are amazing. As of today, Slack looses some money & is unprofitable.

Really? Slack is bringing in 150m/yr. They can't make money with that product at that rate?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#146

Post by phreeza »

adventured wrote: post #112
phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

You mean like Alcoa, IBM, Standard Oil, the Pennsylvania Railroad, American Tobacco, AT&T, Sears, General Motors, Ford, Kodak, Pan-Am, US Steel, etc? I'd suggest studying US economic history, as there isn't a single example of a juggernaut corporation that sustained said dominance very long-term (either due to competition / changing technology or government anti-trust actions).

I'm not suggesting Amazon will never fail, I was rather talking about that they seem to be essentially solving the socialist planning problem, for a limited but ever-expanding section of the economy.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#147

Post by tootie »

phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

I don't think that's the right metaphor. Amazon is still selling to match demand and doing an incredible job. The USSR dictated what and how much to supply of things and people just had to make do.

Amazon is becoming like a chaebol/zaibatsu. The problem I see is them controlling businesses across to wide of a spectrum. They're in retail, computer infrastructure, media, now food. Bezos himself owns a newspaper and a spaceship.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#148

Post by sebmarion »

swalsh wrote: post #40
_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. 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…

Considering Amazon has been developing technology for walk in, and walk out checkout, and owns a robotics company, there might be a lot less of them.

Indeed, I think this is precisely the point.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#149

Post by aezell »

In this part of the country, it seems like Kroger's ClickList service has been very successful. I'd imagine other larger chains in other parts of the country are doing similar things. Sure, it's not delivery but if you are driving right past the store on the way home and don't even have to get out of the car, it's a pretty close competitor. That's especially true in smaller communities where Amazon's grocery delivery doesn't yet make sense. Might this be a partial reason that Amazon is making a bet on the grocery market?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#150

Post by nebula »

illumin8 wrote: post #55
_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. 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 abo…

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.

The tone of your writing suggests that you are OK with treating these people badly. If a company treats some set of its workers badly, what stops them from treating other employees the same way? In this case, they may treat SW engineers well because there is a lot of demand for engineers, and they have to be treated well to retain good folks. That is not comparable to the good culture that OP claims WF has.

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