Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers

#121

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 7:47 PM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #59

cortesoft wrote: post #53

Earlier 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?

I think you are missing my point - if everyone switched to Farmer's markets only, it would overwhelm the system. Farmer's markets are simply not effecient enough to serve the millions of people who live in our large cities.

Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers

#122

Post by wahern » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #113

wahern wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those apples are fresh. They're cheap because it's apple season. The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either. I bought a bag and just noticed today that my office (a big Silicon Valley company who sources commercially) put out bowls of the same apples (they're conspicuously small and yellow for gala apples). I don't get al…

> The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either. When you say "do well", you mean they're not going to generate enough revenue? Because big apples generally lose quality faster in long-term storage, according to a book I inherited on how to run an orchard, from 1948. :) Anecdotally, I find that oversize apples are typically less…

The skins were pretty thin and I assumed they'd dry out too quickly given the surface area to volume ratio, notwithstanding the measures taken for long-term storage. But you would know much better than me, as I have no domain knowledge whatsoever.

All I know for sure is that they tasted fresh--dense, crisp, and juicy--and didn't seem to be covered in much, if any, wax. The price partly seemed to reflect an abundance given that we're in apple picking season; and partly reflect their relatively small size, even for galas, and odd coloring--strangely yellowish (I checked the stickers and the labels twice).

Re: Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers

#123

Post by gumby » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 12:43 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #6

bhhaskin wrote: post #5

The real question is how long until Amazon starts to raise the prices again? It's a smart PR move if you think about it. Lower prices to get more shoppers in the door and then slowly raise prices to pre sale values. They already know people will gladly pay the higher prices.

That's not Amazon's MO, or goal with the Whole Foods purchase. They want to dominate the grocery industry like they dominate the durable goods industry.

> That's not Amazon's MO,

Actually Amazon isn't always the lowest price or the best selection; their #1 aim is to try to be the most convenient (where cost is an important, but not exclusive, factor in "convenience"). In fact they differentiate prices to different consumers and ramp up prices in some popular items when they think they can increase margin. (Not that there's anything necessarily nefarious about that). They do try to make it hard to compare prices, which other retailers do as well.

> [n]or goal with the Whole Foods purchase.

We don't know Amazon's goal with the purchase. There can be several, possibly even competing ones (launch a couple, see what fly). For example they have Echo in the store: it can be just a way to switch people to online ordering and/or a way to see if people buy non-food products through this real estate they already purchased (this is how Fry's transitioned from a grocery store to an electronics store in California) and/or a way to link in-shop shoppers to their online history and/or something we don't even know about -- or they haven't thought of yet.