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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

#311

Post by allsystemsgo »

harrisreynolds wrote: post #275
dawhizkid wrote: post #60

This is not good for Instacart. My understanding is WF was their biggest partner and source of revenue. No way amazon will use them.

I was the early CTO for Shipt who helped build their grocery delivery platform and engineering team. This is obviously HUGE news in the grocery delivery space. Both Instacart and Shipt will need to double down on customer service in order to continue to thrive. The Publix/Instacart partnership is BIG for them and Shipt's partnership with Meijer is helpful to them in the midwest. The biggest keys to success here going…

I haven't had good experiences with Shipt.

1. It wasn't available in my city initially. I'm still not sure if it is. I checked fairly frequently and was never notified. That was at least a year and a half ago.

2. Applied for an iOS gig with them after they posted on HN. I've been building apps for clients for 5 years now. Never got a reply. I even followed up with their lead personally via email. Nada. Just seemed weird since they kept posting to HN asking for talent.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#313

Post by SmellTheGlove »

ghaff wrote: post #138
ccorda wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hannafords has a place an order and pick it up model. Anecdotally, based on my local store, hardly anyone uses it. I suspect it's a narrow niche where people are happy to order on their computer but want to save a few $$ on delivery.

Mainers checking in?

I haven't used it yet, but I just went to their website. I picked the store that I pass on my way home from work. Next available pickup is tomorrow at noon. They gotta go same day if they want people to use it. That or it's popular at this particular store, who knows.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#314

Post by alanfalcon »

jasode wrote: post #30
_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…

If Amazon acquisition of Zappos shoes is an indicator, Jeff Bezos let Tony Hsieh (CEO) continue to keep the culture. Hsieh said in past interviews that Bezos if fairly hands off. There was still some business "synergy" in the acquisition because Zappos logistics got integrated into the Amazon warehouse in Kentucky. Whether Bezos treats Whole Foods the same probably depends on whether he has confidence in existing man…

Zappos CS, front office, creative staff (etc.) got to keep their culture. Zappos warehouse workers got shafted.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#315

Post by cercatrova »

tuna-piano wrote: post #222
cercatrova wrote: post #202

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA2-iMz479o I watched this video a while ago about what Amazon Go is a precursor for. In summary, if AWS is renting out server infrastructure for people, then you can imagine that Amazon can make the infrastructure to lease out Amazon Go to other stores. They first integrate it with Whole Foods, then as customers expect no more checkout areas, they will only go to Whole Foods because i…

Counterpoint... is Amazon Go really that difficult to build? If given three years, do you not think a different software company can build a similar system as well? Is this type of system really a winner-take-all market?

Sure but scope is required in order to create the monopoly, which only Amazon has currently. They can distribute to a thousand stores at once, and a startup competitor will not be able to compete, especially because the switching cost is so high for a customer like Target since it's hardware instead of the traditional software model. If everyone is using Amazon Go, then the network effect is established and shoppers won't download a separate app for something else.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#317

Post by bradnation »

_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…

guess John Mackey probably worked these into the terms of the deal. The glass half full view is hopefully - the employees have more time and are more focused on interacting with customers and educating them about all their esoteric inventory!

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#318

Post by toomuchtodo »

hosh wrote: post #300
euroclydon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Amazon is not sitting on hordes of cash, just looking to diversify. This is a strategic move for them. I'd say the odds are greater than 50% that WF culture, and in turn the store experience, gets worse. I mean, Amazon had the choice to not turn their website into a flea market, and we know how that went.

Not sure, but hearing about how Amazon is running into trouble with their grocery stores, they might want to learn something from Whole Foods (similar to Zappos). There was also an article that talked about the brilliance of Amazon biz organization. Business units are set up like API interfaces, ones that serve both internal needs as well as external customers. The author's claim is that it helps trim the fat, with w…

WF most likely will fail under Amazon (if WF must adapt to Amazon's business methods), opening the market for local competitors and similar national chains to absorb that market share. Great opportunity for Aldi on the low end and Trader Joe's on the high end.

Groceries are not APIs.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#319

Post by bigjimmyk3 »

maxerickson wrote: post #171
rainbowmverse wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Walmart has ~4500 (US) stores already. Aldi is expanding rapidly but has far fewer than that. The two Aldi locations I drive past are both located less than a mile from the nearest Walmart locations (I expect they do a fair amount of piggybacking). The purchase doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me. I guess the most sensible thing is that they see the stores being located by the best populations to start out doin…

After a few initial hiccups, my wife is sold on Walmart's grocery pickup service. For short-range delivery, they are also experimenting with "terrestrial drones"[1] which I have seen around town once or twice.

1. http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/different-kind-drone-ro...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#320

Post by nojvek »

I quite like wholefoods. Now that Amazon will own it I feel less likely to support it.

Amazon is a cut throat profit making machine at the expense of human exploitation.

Wholefoods felt like the little guy who was trying to do things differently from mainstream supermarkets.

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