Did Amazon Really Lower Whole Foods' Prices? (bustle.com) 122
While Whole Foods "strategically marked down select items like avocados and almond milk, overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent -- since Amazon ownership, according to an analysis by research firm Gordon Haskett." An anonymous reader quotes Bustle:
This hardly seems like big savings, and Gordon Haskett noted that since the initial price cuts in August, the cost of some items have been slowly ticking back up. "The price of frozen foods, for example, was 7 percent higher on Sept. 26 than on Aug. 28, when Amazon officially took over," Abha Bhattarai reported for the Post, which is owned by Amazon. "Snack items had risen 5.3 percent in that period, while dairy and yogurt were up 2 percent. (Among categories where prices are lower: Beverages, down about 2.8 percent; bread and bakery, down 6.8 percent; and produce, down 0.5 percent...)"
For shoppers like me who buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, it did feel like I was saving money. However, one industry insider said there is a strategy behind how prices are cut. "The whole game is that you want the 100 most recognizable things -- milk, apples, bananas -- to be cheaper," Jan Rogers Kniffen, an industry consultant and former department store executive, told the Post. "If you can do that, you can build a perception that the whole store is competitively priced."
From July through September, Whole Foods brought in $1.3 billion in sales for Amazon.
For shoppers like me who buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, it did feel like I was saving money. However, one industry insider said there is a strategy behind how prices are cut. "The whole game is that you want the 100 most recognizable things -- milk, apples, bananas -- to be cheaper," Jan Rogers Kniffen, an industry consultant and former department store executive, told the Post. "If you can do that, you can build a perception that the whole store is competitively priced."
From July through September, Whole Foods brought in $1.3 billion in sales for Amazon.
Did Amazon Really Lower Whole Foods' Prices? (Score:5, Interesting)
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" overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent "
so the yes. /article
Though the past tense is important as the prices are going back up. They did lower it... By a single percent point. For a month or so.
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No one at Whole Foods cares about prices anyway. What a stupid article.
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Whole Foods customers absolutely care about price. Ever heard of a Veblen good? [wikipedia.org]
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I remember shopping there one time and then saying, "Oh, that's why they call it Whole Paycheck" and going other places ever since. Their customers might actually not really care.
Check out how much higher their prices really are before you decide their customers care.
yes. (Score:2)
not going to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
in nyc whole foods is in the most expensive rent parts of the city. no way prices are dropping. at least not on the stuff lazy millennials will buy the most of, like frozen foods.
for me, I go there for the fresh fruits and veggies
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Amazon likely bought whole foods simply to expand the Amazon Fresh program and to have a local store from for pickup and returns. It probably does not need to increase sales, as it is looking for, I thin
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Those who want to be ripped at at Krogers unless they show their papers will continue to make that choice.
If you're concerned about presenting a plastic card with an ID # that need not be tied to your name, I certainly hope you don't pay with a credit card.
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Also, if a store wants to give me something extra, that is great. A free piece of chocolate every month with purchase. Or a free pair of underwear every month. But don't jack up the prices and then pretend you are giving me a discount. Many retailers have been fined for such practices, and the one retailer who really started the practice back late in
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If credit cards were as effective as tracking purchases and customers as 'loyalty cards', then stores would not incur the expense of running the programs.
Stating the obvious, with a loyalty card they can track purchases across payment methods, so for some people it could be more effective on the margins. But I'm not sure what that really has to do with my comment (or your "show your papers" language I was addressing). My point was that if you really consider presenting a quasi-anonymous ID # at the time of purchase to be "showing your papers," it's hard to see how you could feel good about providing a definitive ID # to them by paying with a credit card th
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Those who want to be ripped at at Krogers unless they show their papers will continue to make that choice.
Pick just about any store and you can probably use Jenny's number for the stalker discount. (your area code) 867-5309. If someone else hasn't already done it, you be the one.
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Those who want to be ripped at at Krogers unless they show their papers will continue to make that choice.
Ooooh, Krogers tracks my grocery purchasing habits. Therefor something something 1984 chemtrails something.
Amazon serfs (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Weak dollar (Score:2)
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Meanwhile, crude oil went from $46 to $52, an 11% increase.
The increase percentage was even bigger (14%) for the people who use a non-broken calculator
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6 / 46 = 0.130434783, according to my calculator.
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An increase of $6 (52 - 46) from $46 represents a 13% increase.
6 / 46 = 0.130434783, according to my calculator.
Oil prices always round UP, so it's 14%
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Oil prices always round UP, so it's 14%
It's not that oil prices always round up, but that crude increases get reflected immediately in the price of refined products, while when crude drops, you have to wait for the price to "propagate through the magic one-way supply chain."
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It takes 3 months for prices of crude oil to reflect refineries and of course the price gougers errr I mean the buyers and sellers get the gasoline only to sell it again to gas stations. Notice when oil lost 75% that prices only went down 50%. The people buying and selling double dip before and after it is refined.
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This is one of those things that everyone knows for sure. There were so many complaints about it in the UK that the OFT investigated and found it to be total bollocks.
Of course, that's the kind of thing you'd expect from commies without guns. Probably staffed by the same people who run the death panels.
If you're this price-sensitive... (Score:2)
you shouldn't be shopping at Whole Foods to start with.
Protip. (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's a reason it's known as "Whole Paycheck."
Do you also refer to Neiman Marcus as Whole Paycheck? How about your local Mercedes Benz dealer?
why (Score:3)
Here's why... (Score:3)
Why would anybody shop there in the first place? Sounds scammy to me
Because in many places, if you want organic this and that and GMO-free this and that, it's the only option because there are no food coops, farmer's markets, or Trader Joe's.
So if you live "in the city" it all depends on if you want organic/GMO-free. If not, you can certainly find a store with healthy food at a cheaper price.
HOWEVER: Where food coops and Trader Joe's DO do exist in close proximity, it's a "status symbol" thing.
Plus, they have a hipster bar with a dozen or so micro brews where you can orde
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If they're just engineering for bigger potatoes or more tasty apples, that's harmless...
But when GMO is used for these purposes, the hippie lunkheads will still avoid it because "not natural."
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Why would anybody shop there in the first place? Sounds scammy to me
It's the grocery store in the nice neighborhood, and therefore on the way home from work. No matter what, it's going to be more expensive than other places, but still have to show perceived added value over other places so people don't get angry enough to go someplace else. I've seen the same thing at QFCs. As the neighborhood becomes more affluent, the deli and cheese bar gets bigger, the alcohol selection get larger on the top end, and the cheap brands disappear for more expensive brands. Meanwhile, Red A
Maybe not really cheaper but did get me back in (Score:5, Informative)
I knew what the article summary says going in - they probably only cut the price on a handful of popular things, things I probably wouldn't buy there anyway...
However it did get me back into the store just to look at it, so mission accomplished. They actually have several things there I like quite a lot that are unique to the store, so while I don't do much general shipping there I do go back about once a month to get a few things.
I am a little surprised the convergence with Amazon has not meant more though. Not even a little discount for being Prime for example?? Seems like they have a huge potential to make small changes that would make people even a little more likely to come in.
Slowly ticking back up (Score:2)
It didn't take a genius to see this coming, only someone who had previous dealings with Amazon's so-called Subscribe And Save program. It promised exactly the same lie. They are merely repeating the same tactic in brick and mortar.
... and this is a surprise, why? (Score:2)
Amazon buys Whole Foods and lowers the prices on some items. Amazon gets all manner of free press about the lower prices. Once the initial attention wears off, Amazon slowly raises the prices back to prior levels. This doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that others seem to be surprised at this chain of events.
If you have to ask a question like this (Score:2)
Low price stuff at entrance (Score:2)
Whole Foods definitely lowered all their prices (Score:2)
They moved the tags closer to the floor.
Merger should have never been allowed (Score:2)
Grocery price surge is amazing (Score:2)
Even being in middle class, it's distressing to get an $200 bill for a week worth of supplies from Safeway. Upon close inspection, prices are Ok for obvious stuff like milk but pretty outrageous for anything slightly unusual like shampoo. It's also not down to making the margins, as Costco and asian grocery stories obviously manage to survive without such tricks. I can afford to swallow the increase, but I feel really sorry for common people who can't afford to drive to a further away store or just are not
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You must be shopping in California. Most parts of the free world have lower prices.
That depends (Score:5, Funny)
Given that they dropped their price on avocados and that some millionaires and politicians keep attributing the poor millennial's inability to afford to buy houses to their consumption of avocado on toast [theguardian.com] I would say Amazon's price drop is attempting to single-handedly solve* the housing affordability crisis facing our next generation.
* For those of you who don't get the obvious sarcasm, this was obviously sarcastic.
Not bad (Score:2)
"overall prices have dropped very slightly -- about 1 percent "
Most groceries/supermarkets/discounters have less than 1% profit margin, at least in Europe.
Trustworthy Sources of Slashdot (Score:2)
reported for the Post, which is owned by Amazon.
Why are we linking to shitty sources that lie, and including their lies in the summary? That Bustle article that's quoted has a clear grudge, they try to paint Amazon as big evil even after explaining the practice is commonplace among grocers. The stltoday article is a straight-up reprint of the original WaPo article that just doesn't link back to the original or the original sources. Bustle links back to the same WaPo article no less than five times, suggesting it's really just a repackaging of the same ar
Actually, normal practice for Retail Food (Score:2)
I am not at all surprised by the findings. It succinctly summarizes the retail Food Industry in first-world nations.
During "one of those conversations" ... note that this is purely anecdotical ... a casual acquaintance piped in about a discussion on the day's grocery purchases and people's general food buying preferences. I liked Safeway, due to the quality of fresh meat and produce offered there, and someone said that they shopped at The Great Canadian Superstore, another food reseller in western Canada, o
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That's just based on a false premise. Why would anyone not buy at multiple stores to get the best price on each individual item? That's what I do. That and buy in bulk items which don't spoil when the price is lowest?
As for Whole Foods, just as an example 90/10 ground beef is over $10 a pound. Walmart sells it for $3.28. I can often find a local grocer who has a sale on it for $1.83. If I go and buy only ground beef and not the 100 other items that have been marked up to support the sale I come out ahead.
Absolutely. But it takes time, and careful record keeping, it might mean putting up with mounds of flyers in the mailbox (you can't just indicate "grocery stores only"; I have a "No Flyers" label on my mailbox, and that takes care of almost all junk mail except that where the originator pays the much higher rate to the Post Office, whom guarantee delivery to every address in the zip code / postal code paid for). Still the newsprint variety is essentially non-existant in my home.
So that means checking online
If you are shopping based on cheap prices (Score:3)
You aren't shopping at whole foods in the first place. So who cares?
Their reputation prevents me (Score:2)
from shopping at WF, because I know they'll be more expensive.
The only time that I shop there is as a last resort, when some fruit/veg are going out of season, in the chance that they might have a better selection.
Amazon Doesn't Own WaPo (Score:2)
Amazon Does Not Own Washington Post (Score:1)
Amazon does not own the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos != Amazon.
Re:Normal practice for Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
everyone does the basket thing. wal mart pioneered it. you figure out what people tend to buy in groups. mark down one or two of the items and raise prices on the rest. it's a 20 year old strategy.
Re:Normal practice for Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
So, you're a millennial? Cause, grocery has always been low margin with price leaders.
And, Walmart [fastcompany.com].
Re:Normal practice for Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
Try even further back (1917):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As soon as you had fixed prices that people could choose themselves, this was standard practice.
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They let you buy amber ale on food stamps?
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I make $4,250+ per month.
protip: if you feel like you have to include hundreds and below when you bring up your monthly income, you're poor.
stalker alert (Score:1)
Chris
You're on first name basis with creimer?
( -.-)
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You people seriously need to get a life, and stop spamming.