28 August, 2017
Amazon closes its Whole Foods acquisition deal today, making the supermarket chain an official subsidiary of the online giant. They're the same price as what you'd find on Amazon.com, though full-sized Echos appear to be out of stock online at this time.
We reached out to Amazon to see if all Whole Foods would begin selling the Echo and will update the post when we get more information.
According to a press release distributed by the Amazon last week, the two companies will be working together to pursue a vision of lower priced high-quality organic foods at Whole Foods stores.
Amazon have been slowly ramping up their food and household goods sales with programs such as Amazon Pantry, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Prime Now one hour food deliveries and Amazon Restaurant. It's been also planned to make Amazon Prime as Whole Foods Market's customer rewards program.
"To get started, we're going to lower prices beginning Monday on a selection of best-selling grocery staples, including Whole Trade organic bananas, responsibly-farmed salmon, organic large brown eggs, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, and more", said Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer. After the sale goes through, Amazon customers can expect to start seeing some items from the Whole Foods private labels (365 Everyday Value, Whole Paws and Whole Catch) on Amazon.com.
"As part of our commitment to quality, we'll continue to expand our efforts to support and promote local products and suppliers".
Workers gathered in big groups and moved around the Whole Foods store in Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood Sunday evening, assessing items across different aisles.
There were also non-Whole Foods employees with the group wearing "visitor" stickers - perhaps Amazon employees helping manage the transition. These, of course, are in addition to all the privileges they're already getting from Amazon such as Free Two-Day Shipping, instant access to video streaming, ad-free music streaming, and unlimited Prime readings.
By buying Whole Foods, Amazon is taking a bold step into brick-and-mortar, with its more than 460 stores and potentially very lucrative data about how shoppers behave offline. Supermarkets' success has mainly. A Piper Jaffray survey from Spring 2016 found that 365 is shoppers' favorite organic-food brand, ahead of premium names such as Kellogg's-owned Kashi and General Mills' Annie's. Their partnership with Amazon will surely bring more success and better health to the world's populace.