Does anyone have any data to back up the price drops? From my anecdotal evidence it seems WF is just as expensive as it was before. I'm sure these price cuts are only on certain products so it would be interesting to know what these are.
Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
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Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making money is their MO. It comes down to simple supply and demand, and it makes prefect sense to raise their prices slowly overtime.
While that makes sense in a generic, economic theory, this isn't how Amazon has operated. Ever. So I don't see why you're picking this hill to die on. My money is on Amazon doing what they have always done: compete with wide selections and the cheapest pricing possible while using Whole Foods to bring their Fresh delivery service to far more markets at a higher efficiency.
I agree with this. It's gotten to the point that when I need something I buy it from Amazon, with the only exception being food. And that last part might change.
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure farmer's markets are prepared, and perhaps could never be prepared, for the type of volume they would have to do to entirely replace grocery stores. As someone who lives in a big city, grocery stores here are packed at all hours. There will be dozens of checkout lines open going through customers as fast as they can. There are a ton of grocery stores, too, with each one as busy. Farmer's markets are cle…
You can't fit in an hour every weekend to go get food, that's cheaper and better quality than a grocery store to feed you and your family?
An hour of a software engineer's time is worth ~$30-50. At least, many of them happily pay that much for someone to do an hour's worth of chores for them.
Unless you're buying industrial quantities of food, I doubt a trip to the farmer's market will save you $40. The quality difference is also difficult to quantify. Onions and potatoes from the farmer's market aren't any healthier then onions from the supermarket.
And here's the elephant in the room - at any particular time of year, most of the food that you eat is not in season where you live. If it's not in season, you're not going to get it from your farmer's market (Unless said farmer is reselling it from a wholesaler - which a lot of stalls do.)
Do you spend an hour a week churning butter by hand, or do you pay someone else to do it for you?
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would help them the most -- getting rid of grocery stores that sell low quality, sugary mass produced foods and going back to local micro farmers markets is in what form of reality a bad thing?
either those people can't afford locally produced food, or the farmers can't afford to do it at the prices they'd demand. people need affordable supermarkets. this isn't complicated, it's unfortunately just not very profitable to serve these people.
Every local farmers market I've been to has been less expensive than a grocery store. I literally come away with enough food for the week at half the cost of the grocery store produce (Safeway for me). Whole Foods? Probably 1/4th the cost.
Really, truly what I'm saying is true. For people who don't even have a grocery store, I think things like community gardens (a garden that is shared between a block of neighbors) is a perfectly scalable, healthy and affordable solution.
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
So along that line of thinking, everyone knows the McDonalds is there so there's no reason for McDonalds to ever pay for advertising.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Say Coca-Cola buys McDonald's Corporation and it makes a splash in the business community and restaurant blogs. Then the new joint company announces that all soft drinks are $0.10 from now on. Traffic spikes 25%. Which of those two events was the cause?
That is a false comparison because if you ask people the reason why they don't buy McDonald's more frequently very few of them will cite the cost of soft drinks. Many people will cite the overall cost of Whole Foods as a reason they don't shop there more frequently. Amazon's changes directly addressed the biggest complaint about Whole Foods.
A better analogy might be if Coca-Cola found a way to magically drop the calorie total of McDonald's food without altering the taste.
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#66They still have ridiculously high prices. For example: a gallon of Crystal Geyser water is $1.50, while in most other places is $1.00. What justifies a 50% premium?
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would help them the most -- getting rid of grocery stores that sell low quality, sugary mass produced foods and going back to local micro farmers markets is in what form of reality a bad thing?
The people referenced in the article don't even HAVE grocery stores, they just have things like 7/11 or other quicky marts.
> The people referenced in the article don't even HAVE grocery stores
That's largely bunk - the definition of a 'food desert' is far from what the media would have you believe:
"In the U.S., a food desert consists of a low income census tract residing at least 0.5 miles in urban areas ... from the large grocery store."
Living 0.6 miles from a grocery store != not having a grocery store....
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#68People here are smart enough to realize what this is: a publicity stunt. Even if you have money, shopping at Whole Foods is foolish. Amazon reduced a fraction of the items prices, they are still heavily over-priced, and the food quality for the price is low. Whole Foods is a grocery store that prices it's food high to attract a certain type of consumer. That's all. If you want high quality food, I encourage you to vi…
Ah, farmers' markets! We have a nice one in our town, and it's fun to visit. But it didn't take long to notice . . .
1. It's a hard life for farmers. To be open for business by 8:30 a.m. for our local gentry, it's necessary to rise at 4 a.m., load up the truck and drive for a couple hours to our town. Some of the smaller-stand operators are on the verge of quitting because the commitment doesn't pay off.
2. Part of shoppers money goes for the farmers' gasoline, travel burden, etc. That's much more intense when food is brought to market inefficiently in many smaller vehicles rather than a single, Interstate-grade truck.
3. Most farmers are trying to move produce at multiple stages of goodness. Yes, there are beautiful peaches at $3.99/pound. There also are squished ones in the mix at times, too, as well as over-ripe ones at $1/pound that the farmers need to sell, too. It's all part of running a store. But someone still has to pick out the good from the not-so-good, and often that's the customer.
Overall, I'm glad farmers' markets exist, and sometimes the goods can be spectacular. But the inefficiencies are too severe for them to take on a dominant role in feeding the USA.
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's probably because (As was alluded to in other threads on HN), most of the price cuts came to low-turnover specialty goods. The $8 bottle of lavender water is now $6.
That's not true at all - the price cuts were to staples like salmon, avocados, ground beef, milk, eggs, bananas, etc...
Any price cuts on bread, pork, sausage, potatoes, tilapia, tomatoes, onions, leeks, beets, rice, beans? From the '49 discounts' link in this thread, the answer seems to be 'no'.
Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers
#70What categories did the price cut reflect in. I shop at wholefoods every week and I have not noticed a drop in the prices of fruits, vegetables, milk and neither in the bake/meals section.
The most cuts I have seen were in the meat/seafood sections. Tilapia was cut for $4-5, ribeye $6, etc.