Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods approved, here come the changes

As of Monday, August 28, when you walk into a Whole Foods Market, you can expect some changes thanks to Amazon.

Amazon announced earlier this year that it was going to purchase Whole Foods, and with the final legal hurdles now cleared, the purchase will be completed on Monday. Amazon is wasting no time in letting you know what differences you can expect immediately.

• Starting Monday, Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices on a selection of best-selling staples across its stores, with much more to come. Customers will enjoy lower prices on products like Whole Trade bananas, organic avocados, organic large brown eggs, organic responsibly-farmed salmon and tilapia, organic baby kale and baby lettuce, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, creamy and crunchy almond butter, organic Gala and Fuji apples, organic rotisserie chicken, 365 Everyday Value organic butter, and much more.
• In the future, after certain technical integration work is complete, Amazon Prime will become Whole Foods Market’s customer rewards program, providing Prime members with special savings and other in-store benefits.
• Whole Foods Market’s healthy and high-quality private label products—including 365 Everyday Value, Whole Foods Market, Whole Paws and Whole Catch—will be available through Amazon.com, AmazonFresh, Prime Pantry and Prime Now.
• Amazon Lockers will be available in select Whole Foods Market stores. Customers can have products shipped from Amazon.com to their local Whole Foods Market store for pick up or send returns back to Amazon during a trip to the store.

The only surprising bit of news in all of this is that it says Amazon lockers will appear in ‘select Whole Foods Market stores.’ One has to wonder why the lockers won’t be installed in all locations, but it’s sure to be some form of logistical issue.

As for Amazon Prime integration, our guess is this will be up and running as soon as humanly possible. This will be a huge treasure trove of data for Amazon to mine and to upsell customers. Buy a jar of salsa at Whole Foods, log in to Amazon that night and see corn chips as a recommended purchase. There is no saying this is what Amazon will do, but it certainly is a potential avenue for the company to pursue.

There are sure to be more changes down the road, and something makes us think this is merely Amazon testing the waters for more future acquisitions of existing brands.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/08/25/amazon-acquisition-of-whole-foods-approved-here-come-the-changes/