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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

#741

Post by harrisreynolds »

kp1234321 wrote: post #677
harrisreynolds wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. And agree. But that is a different problem. To eat healthy on a very low wage you need to live enough out of the city to be able plant a garden and grow your own vegetables. OR shop at a place like Aldi but make sure to buy fresh food instead of the packaged crap. But Whole Paycheck is a different market.

It's my understanding that growing your own food was way more expensive than buying it, even from a premium market like Whole Foods.

Seeds = cheap. Water = cheap. Dirt = free.

Hard to be that price! :-)

(this assumes the opportunity cost on your time is fairly low, because it would take time)

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#742

Post by sh87 »

kp1234321 wrote: post #677
harrisreynolds wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. And agree. But that is a different problem. To eat healthy on a very low wage you need to live enough out of the city to be able plant a garden and grow your own vegetables. OR shop at a place like Aldi but make sure to buy fresh food instead of the packaged crap. But Whole Paycheck is a different market.

It's my understanding that growing your own food was way more expensive than buying it, even from a premium market like Whole Foods.

Growing your own food is expensive. Growing food for your neighbourhood is profitable if done right. Selling better food to the rich neighbourhood is even more profitable. Selling them prepared food, even more. Giving them the convenience of that delivered to their homes, much better. And finally, giving them the option of buying this online with set payment schedule and quicker deliveries. Thats Amazon + Whole Foods.

No one ever lost betting on people to be lazy.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#744

Post by harrisreynolds »

spade wrote: post #691
harrisreynolds wrote: post #334

HUGE news in the grocery delivery space. Groceries are one of the few large markets that require some proximity to customers due to costs and spoilage. Each grocery store is a type of mini-distribution center for grocery products. Shipt and Instacart have succeeded to date because they use existing distribution channels and set up marketplaces for the "last-mile" of delivery. This is in contrast to Webvan in the earl…

Do you think this acquisition actually opens doors for Instacart/Shipt? Existing grocery chains are now going up against Amazon. Maybe they'll be more willing to partner with Instacart/Shipt to compete?

Hard to say if it opens doors or not, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.

Think about this: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Who is Amazons BIGGEST enemy? Probably Walmart.

Getting a partnership with Walmart would be HUGE for Shipt. And honestly would be good for Walmart as they try to defend their turf.

Sarah Perez had a good article related to this: "Amazon wants to become Walmart before Walmart can become Amazon" (https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/16/amazon-wants-to-become-wal...)

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#745

Post by FLUX-YOU »

kp1234321 wrote: post #647
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still believe that Instacart and Shipt can succeed Amazon could just buy Shipt and/or Instacart as well, barring FTC intervention. I'm not sure what B2B partners Shipt has, but I know they have a mobile app. Joining the mobile app to Amazon would give Shipt a boost and Amazon a start, I'd imagine. [I worked with one of Shipt's mobile developers at a previous position. Go Shipt!]

Serious question: would it be beneficial for Amazon to buy out an existing grocery distribution company like Instacart when Amazon is already an expert at distribution?

They would be paying for customers and talent. Why spend time building your own network when you can buy someone else's for the right price?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#746

Post by sh87 »

deelowe wrote: post #293
StevePerkins wrote: post #22

Wow... all the articles I've been reading about Whole Foods lately deal with how they're hurting, and losing market share to more affordable competitors like Trader Joe's. If this is about Amazon thinking they can turn things around for Whole Foods, then it will certainly mean drastic changes to price, selection, and employee structure. If this is about Amazon using a brick-and-mortar chain as a tool to help Amazon's…

I think this is more about amazon easily acquiring a ton of retail space for it's JIT order deliver business. I'm starting to think they're actually serious about this drone delivery stuff.

Yeah my thoughts did rev up to the drone delivery concept till I realized Elon Musk is building a tunnel underneath because thats more realistic than drone delivery.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#747

Post by sgs1370 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #721
nickbauman wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for a retail software company that was purchased by Oracle, I can assure you Grocery retail is the most difficult retail supply chain to execute well. The margins are razor-thin. The products have myriads of stubborn problems: short life checking, long life checking, mix of delivery types (direct, warehouse, corporate and 3rd party), very complex planograms, composite units of measure, challenging shrin…

>It continues to do well with non-perishable items. I've tried a bunch of different grocery delivery services (Seattle area) and Amazon Fresh is far and away the best of them. I stuck with Safeway for four months and literally every single time they delivered an order, there was a problem with the order. Every single week! There was always something missing (not even obscure stuff - once they claimed to be out of ban…

Echoing this about Amazon Fresh. I have ordered 3 times (mainly meat and veggies) and it's been flawless. Their packaging is great, the quality of the food is great. It is a luxury purchase but although the prices are more than at my local store, they are less than what I would pay at WF. Most importantly, the delivery times are very flexible and easy to arrange...with the same great search engine amazon uses for everything else. I tried a few other grocery delivery services over the years and they couldn't promise any delivery window, their packaging was terrible, and you had to be there in person to get the groceries.

As an aside, the amazon fresh packaging is great as trash bags. The ice packages they send along are great to put in your freezer and use later on trips. They recently (at least to me) added a durable cloth-based cooler, which they say you can put on your porch and they will reuse. I may let them have it back or I might use it as a cooler for my normal grocery store trips.

It is slightly more expensive, but the bottom line is that in the middle of the week I am just too worn out to go to the store, so being able to have a mid or end week delivery means that I have stuff at home instead of having to order out.

I guess I qualify as an amazon fanboy ;-)

Relevance to this HN story, I think they can probably leverage this to help their Amazon Fresh business.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#748

Post by trophycase »

Robotbeat wrote: post #395

I'm from the Twin Cities in Minnesota which has tons of co-op grocery stores. They're successful and growing with cheaper prices than Whole Foods and much more progressive values (as well as giving regular folk an ownership stake in a crucial community institution). Whole Foods seemed to me to be just a poor copy of cooperative grocers. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that in the comments here. I'm not sheddi…

Seward Co-op is literally my standard for grocery store. I always laugh at stuff like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's because, like you said, they are sham-progressive in every sense IMO.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#750

Post by csallen »

illumin8 wrote: post #726
eellpp wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is forcing you to. The economic/social situation of people force them into these jobs. Just ignoring this and accepting it as reality is ridiculous. This can be said of any of such social behaviours. In some cultures, the violence on women is countered by the logic that they were wearing certain kind of dress and nobody is forcing them to do this etc .. There are certain values in society that we should try…

Bullshit. You either take a job, or you don't. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. Nobody forced you to live where you do. Nobody forced you to choose a place to live that doesn't have opportunities. I've moved to half a dozen different states to get a better job, because I realized, like any reasonably decent person, that you can't expect others to improve your own situation. You need to take charge of your own li…

I get your point, but the fact that one way to improve working conditions is to take matters into your own hands doesn't mean that we should rule out the other course of action: pressuring companies to change.

I remember reading a story about a 19th century company that literally put chains on the doors to prevent workers from leaving the building. When a fire broke out, dozens died. Today we don't allow that type of behavior, and for good reason. The reason that you can move elsewhere to get a better job is because society has worked to ensure the prevalence of said good jobs, and I hope it continues to do so.

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