
Amazon offers Whole Foods discounts to Prime members - jrs235
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-whole-foods/amazon-cuts-whole-foods-prices-for-prime-members-in-new-grocery-showdown-idUSKCN1IH0BM
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assblaster
Amazon's game is pretty clear:

1) under price to get market dominance,

2) then increase prices higher than competition

3) before customers realize they're actually more expensive than the
competition.

I stopped trusting Amazon at step 3 and only shop there if they actually have
the cheapest option. They act like grocery stores: advertise a low price on
one item to get you in the door, but profit off the other items.

~~~
matte_black
Unless I’m saving at least 10% off or at minimum $20 by not buying an item at
Amazon, I don’t really give a shit if I pay more. It’s just too convenient.

I always laugh when people say “It’s cheaper!” somewhere else and then it
turns out it’s only by like 4 bucks.

~~~
B0btheBuilder
On top of the convenience, I don't have to risk putting my credit card
information into random websites. My parents dislike online shopping because
they're fearful of getting credit card information lost or stolen online.
Amazon is one of the few places they trust online.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I don’t understand this. You’re never liable for fraudulent credit card
transactions, therefore this is irrational behavior.

~~~
MiddleEndian
The time, anxiety, and exhaustion of dealing with fraudulent charges outweighs
the abstract concept of liability in this case.

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anilshanbhag
I still fail to understand why people shop at Whole Foods. Whole foods store
are smaller, have lesser choices and are significantly more expensive. Every
grocery store sells organic food. Even with 10% discount, their prices will be
higher than Trader Joe's / Star / Kroger.

~~~
brandonmenc
Agree. I shop at the world HQ here in Austin, and even it has not sated my
longing for the Wegmans of my homeland.

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bane
The local WF is right between two Wegmans where I live and there's no
comparison. Wegmans is probably the single most impressive grocer I've ever
encountered.

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pointillistic
How is this being implemented? A Whole Foods card tied to Amazon, Amazon
Credit Card or an app. In other words how do they know in Whole Foods who has
Prime?

~~~
matwood
You have to get the WF app and scan it at checkout. The app has a 'sign in
with your amazon account' button.

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drivingmenuts
I wonder if we'll still be able to call it Whole Paycheck after the discount?

Fortunately, in Texas, we have HEB - Amazon will have to work pretty hard to
beat their prices + convenience of being everywhere.

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solotronics
and if you want an upscale atmosphere we have Central Market (which is like a
whole foods but better in every way :] )

~~~
drivingmenuts
With correspondingly higher prices than HEB (it's owned by HEB).

I've been to the central Central Market. The lack of products is kinda off-
putting. Better to go hit the HEB at Mueller, which has a huge selection from
upscale to downscale products.

And beer in growlers.

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nabla9
It's Sam's Club vs Jeff's Club vs Covetton House

Pick your unique curated lifestyle today.

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Shivetya
I am not overly worried and while news sites like to make it out as possible
doom and gloom for the existing retailers the key is, they have 463 locations
nation wide.

that isn't enough to disrupt but it is enough with a pliant press to make it
seem you can. ALDI has 1600+ stores in 35 states and while its expected
customers are more limited by means the appeal of ALDI does cover a lot of
income levels.

~~~
matwood
I agree. Plus, I think most people shop at grocery stores based on convenience
first, and then everything else. I have a WF that I could easily visit during
the week, but it is also so busy that I end up going to a different store that
is in my neighborhood.

At some point though, these discounts are going to get deep enough to get me
to put up with the WF crowds.

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cptskippy
> convenience first

This is definitely a huge factor in the equation and just due to proximity. We
live in close proximity to 6 grocery stores, 3 are the same brand. The store
we choose to shop at comes down to selection because even among the 3 same
branded stores the stock varies.

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quadrangle
Ugh, WF was one of the remaining anonymous, non-loyalty places. Damnit

~~~
mmt
What's your complaint, though?

You, personally, will still be able to opt-in to the old model by not using
the loyalty program and paying the old Whole Paycheck prices, right?

~~~
quadrangle
as if the concept of "old prices" has any reality in the world going forward…
Prices will continue to change and the idea of what they would have been
becomes nothing more than a counter-factual speculation.

There's always been a tension if avoiding loyalty-systems means paying extra,
whether going to a more-expensive store or simply refusing to participate in
the system.

These are systematic things.

You didn't consider for a tiny second that my complaint was about the way the
_system_ works and affects people overall rather than being a personal
complaint as though I was one of those delusional libertarian folks seeing
myself as some totally isolated individual actor… I'm complaining about
loyalty systems and tracking and its effect overall on, yes, even individual
anonymity and liberties etc.

~~~
mmt
> as if the concept of "old prices" has any reality in the world going forward

So.. you're saying that the answer to my second questions is "no"? If loyalty
programs routinely distort pricing that much, then the opt-out I suggested
doesn't exist.

> Prices will continue to change and the idea of what they would have been
> becomes nothing more than a counter-factual speculation.

Still, I don't think we have to speculate. When loyalty cards first came out,
there were some chains that slow to implement or, for whatever reason, decided
their implementation needed cancelling and ended up trumpeting their failure
in their ads as a feature to consumers "no card needed for discount!". How'd
the pricing work out then?

> You didn't consider for a tiny second that my complaint was about the way
> the system works

That's a pretty huge counter-factual speculation (to use your words),
considering I was merely asking questions. In point of fact, I did consider
it.

> affects people overall

OK. So, if I understand correctly, you're worried about WF jumping on the
loyalty bandwagon because of the implications for society/other-people, not
for yourself. In that case, no opt-out strategy would be good enough, be it
paying the non-discounted price or some version of 867-5309. That's fair.

~~~
quadrangle
Thanks for the reasonable reply, and sorry for assuming things in your initial
question.

I definitely see everything in a much more social context. I rarely make any
decision thinking merely about the immediate short-term individual costs and
gains. I can only technically but not sympathetically grasp how people can
have self-centered, myopic mindsets, but obviously enough people do. I
frequently fund myself having to bring up the idea that pro-social thinking is
even a concept to consider.

Understanding that everything I personally experience is colored by my pro-
social mindset, I feel really differently (positively) about places like
Trader Joe's that refuse not only to have loyalty cards but even to have loss-
leader discount sales and other such bull crap. The relationship between
Trader Joe's and their customers is fundamentally more respectful and honest
than these other stores.

Incidentally, I don't mind the sale discounts at places like Grocery Outlet
because they are actually based on overstock and so actually pricing to
supply-and-demand as opposed to playing some game with prices. Their
highlighting of how much you "saved" over "other stores' prices" is annoying
though.

Finally, I happen to know that many of the discount sales at other stores are
actually forced upon them by outside brands. Brands are pushing their names
and provide product at a discount to the store with the requirement that they
promote a sale, all to drive the brand recognition etc. and that's part of why
Trader Joe's is free from that crap (by not emphasizing outside brand names).

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bane
I get the impression from long-time Whole Foods shoppers that the quality of
the store has definitely gone down since the acquisition. There's a new one
not too terribly far from where I live so we decided to check it out and came
away deeply unimpressed.

\- Maybe 7 different kinds of fruit and vegetables. And I'm stretching this.
Most in two varieties, organic and not. There was virtually no selection of
fresh produce and what was there wasn't highly impressive in its freshness.
The homeopathy section of the store was larger and better stocked.

\- All of the meats were vacuum sealed and prepackaged. No fresh fish or
butcher. And I don't mean "butchered in the shop and plastic wrapped". I mean
packaged at like a factory god knows where. Some of the meat was past the
sell-by date.

\- An extraordinarily large section of milk and milk-alike products. I
remember years ago (the last time I shopped at a WF) there being different
kinds of milk from different mammals (goat, etc.), but not like 4 different
kinds of cow milk and then a dozen different varieties of vegetable-based
"milks".

\- The hot food bar was flavorless and in some cases bad...also very
expensive.

\- A quarter of the store was turned over to some kind of bar.

\- A definite feel from the employees of not wanting to be there.

I thought it might just be this store, so I went to another one near my work
for lunch and the same problems. The organic wine selection is fantastic I
guess.

Keep in mind that this store is not far from a couple Wegmans (absolutely
fantastic top-tier grocers who's organic produce section alone is the size of
the entire WF's produce section) and in the middle of a ring of large ethnic
and South/East Asian grocery chains (read:they all have local fresh fish
markets where you can get fresh fish filleted on demand right next to a giant
wall of fresh butchered and wrapped meats and animal parts from an entire
menagerie of fauna).

The local regular old grocery I can walk to was a better experience tbh. It
felt very much like a very expensive Aldi in terms of selection and quality.

~~~
joezydeco
WF changed their supply chain recently and has been a source of problems as
well:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/08/empty-
whole-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/08/empty-whole-food-
market-store-shelves-anger-shoppers/308599002/)

~~~
matwood
It's worth noting WF did this _before_ the Amazon purchase. Timing wise people
tried to blame it on Amazon, but they really had nothing to do with it.

~~~
hedora
Yeah, this was a classic pump and dump scam.

If the victim weren’t a giant, ruthless megacorp, I’d probably be outraged
instead of amused.

The context here is that WF used to use their back rooms to hold excess
inventory, but transitioned to a just in time delivery model. This had two
primary effects:

For a few quarters, their numbers looked better than they should, since they
were juiced by selling down a bunch of inventory that had been stranded in the
supply chain.

The second effect hit after the acquisition: The JIT supply chain they setup
was an unreliable disaster, so the availability of goods at the stores
plummeted after the buffer of backroom stock was depleted.

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montrose
At first glance I read "prime members" as "prime numbers," which was
intriguing but confusing.

~~~
k__
as a non native speaker, I have this issue rather often, hehe.

Prime can mean in German "Primzahl" -> prime number and "Erstklassig" -> first
class.

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barbelldan
Elitists club on the way. Actually from the business perspective that's a
smart move. I'd love to know what are the churn numbers of Amazon Prime
program.

~~~
bpicolo
It's like 100 bucks a year, not all that different price-wise from a Costco
membership. Amazon overall has been trying to make Whole Foods less elitist
than previously

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's like 100 bucks a year, not all that different price-wise from a Costco
> membership.

Its $120, the same as Costco Executive membership, and twice Costco Gold Star
membership.

~~~
Fins
With cashback on Executive membership, it always ends up being free (and then
some) for me. On the other hand, Amazon was just not worth the aggravation of
having to deal with their customer "service".

