https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-buying-whole-foods-13-7-billion-130753335.html
A dot com company just bought a brick & mortar store...in order to gain a real-world commerce presence. Absolutely fascinating.
Amazon's first step should be to address the "Whole Paycheck" problem, change the name of all the stores, and drop the prices to normal levels.
Whole foods is obscene. Amazon is evil but useful. I'm not sure what to make of this.
I'll keep shopping at Aldi, and Trader Joe's when I'm feeling fancy.
I swear I've been in Trader Joes a half dozen times and never found anything to buy. My wife went once and came back with some cheap wine that was just awful. What's the attraction?
Whole Foods has amazing pizza.
I generally like their selection of chocolate for wife also.
I think I am still a stockholder through my son's ESA, so I think I am happy about this in the short term. We'll see what to do in the long term.
We do Trader Joe's for frozen meals and cheese. Aldi is good for everything except fresh meat and produce. And a local produce/ meat market for fresh stuff.
Not a Whole Foods fan. No clue how this merger will work.
Whole Foods gave my B-I-L a good reaming. They hired him and several other good employees away from Fresh Market, only to E36 M3 can the whole lot of them a few months later.
In reply to Basil Exposition:
Cheap, healthy, not processed, delicious food.
It really frustrates me the nearest trader Joe's is an hour away from me now.
Since aldi owns trader Joe's, it's strange to me, because new aldi stores keep popping up.
But I gotta hand it to Jeff Bezos for portfolio diversity. Amazon, Amazon cloud, Amazon's new spy cloud(is a cloud service for spies go figure), the Washington post, the personal spybot(err echo).
HappyAndy wrote: Whole foods is obscene. Amazon is evil but useful. I'm not sure what to make of this. I'll keep shopping at Aldi, and Trader Joe's when I'm feeling fancy.
Maybe I'm naive, but why is Amazon evil?
In reply to RevRico:
Aldi and Trader Joe's have a complicated family relationship. TJ's is owned by Aldi Nord. Aldi Süd owns the US-market Aldi chain of stores. They are related but separate chains that were started by German brothers, who agreed not to compete in the same geographic markets.
In reply to RevRico:
There are two Aldis - Nord and Süd, owned by the sons of the founder of Aldi. Basically they split the company. I might be misremembering this, but IIRC Trader Joe's belong to the people who own Aldi Nord, and I think the Aldi-branded stores to the other half of the family.
RossD wrote: ....Maybe I'm naive, but why is Amazon evil?
I don't know about evil, but Amazon has definitely become "the man". They are clearly not the best deal on many things. As they become close to having a monopoly it only gets worse. The saving grace is that Walmart is making moves, which is keeping Amazon honest.
It seems likely that Walmarts huge physical store presence has something to do with Amazon looking for something to buy.
In reply to bastomatic:
I did not know that. it does make sense though.
Always thought it was weird in Cali with a trader Joe on every corner and an hour ride to aldi, which is the opposite of here in PA.
There was(might still be) a "boycott" app, where you scanned a barcode and it gave you the company family tree. So if you didn't want your money going to the Koch brothers or animal testing or something, you could see the supply chain, and they just had aldi on the top.
RossD wrote: Maybe I'm naive, but why is Amazon evil?
Well... their whole business model is selling products at such low margins they don't really make any money off the sales, but their sheer volume of sales keeps the stock price high because the stock market believes they'll eventually drive everyone else out of business and start increasing prices.
In general, the margins at grocery stores is minimal - like in the single digits for many products. But Whole Foods seems like they sell items for higher prices, which might make their sales model more transferable to what Amazon has been pondering (getting into the direct-sales grocery market).
RossD wrote: Maybe I'm naive, but why is Amazon evil?
Because they're number one, and people will think of (and make up) all kinds of interesting reasons to hate number one. See also: Walmart.
If it makes you (the haters) feel any better, Amazon is really uncompetitive in Canada.
Amazon, the blue state wal-mart.
In reply to Ian F:
Low margins? Are you looking at Amazon.com? Because I don't find them to be the lowest price very often at all. And I pay them monthly whether I order something or not. Usually it is a decent price and it's very convenient.
Amazon needs the real estate to launch more drones.
Gives a new meaning to the phrase 'Get me a beer!'.
Meh, some of us are willing to pay higher prices for higher quality. They actually pay there employees a halfway decent wage, news flash that also contributes to higher prices.
In 2013 their avg employee pay was approaching $19/hr.
I wonder how this ties in with Amazon offering discounted Prime memberships to those on food stamps.
Best got take I've heard so far:
"Amazon just spend $13.7billion to buy Whole Foods. For that they got two half-gallons of almond milk and a bag of organic kale."
We buy most of our stuff from Amazon. I have a box pile in my garage that is bigger than me. Haven't made a run to the cardboard recycling place in a few months.
trucke wrote: Amazon needs the real estate to launch more drones. Gives a new meaning to the phrase 'Get me a beer!'.
Hmm, I'm well within drone range of Whole Foods.....
In reply to RossD:
They've got a reputation as a meatgrinder. A potentially lucrative meatgrinder for knowledge workers, but a meatgrinder none the less. Plus, IMHO, there a little stingier than comparable companies, as far as knowledge workers go.
Warehouse conditions:
HQ conditions:
JG Pasterjak wrote: Best got take I've heard so far: "Amazon just spend $13.7billion to buy Whole Foods. For that they got two half-gallons of almond milk and a bag of organic kale."
Bezos: "Alexa, buy me something from Whole Foods."
Alexa: "Buying Whole Foods."
Bezos: "E36 M3."
z31maniac wrote: Meh, some of us are willing to pay higher prices for higher quality. They actually pay there employees a halfway decent wage, news flash that also contributes to higher prices. In 2013 their avg employee pay was approaching $19/hr.
Holy crap. 19 bucks per hour with no education and no real skills required.
No wonder it is soo expensive!
Unless that counts benefits too.
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