The Amazonification Of Whole Foods Is DOA For One Simple Reason
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April 14, 2019 San Jose / CA / USA – Whole Foods store displaying an ad for Amazon Prime Membership getty Following reports from the Wall Street Journal on the “Amazonification of Whole Foods,” amid new pilots in which ShopBots (yes, that’s a real term) fetch Pepsi and 3,800-square-foot Amazon Grocery kiosks sell Doritos, Whole Foods Market’s CEO Jason Buechel surprisingly doubled down on the validity of these ideas, via a post on LinkedIn. In the post, Buechel shared a video of the ShopBot test at a store in Pennsylvania and said, “Whole Foods Market has always taken pride in offering a wide selection of natural and organic products, but we understand customers appreciate the convenience of one-stop shopping. Last week our team introduced a new “store within a store” concept at the Plymouth Meeting, PA location . . . We’ve built a new 10,000-square-foot automated micro-fulfillment center in the store’s back-of-house area at our Pennsylvania location, giving customers the opportunity to add items they can’t find in-store – all in one stop.” One watch of the above video, and no doubt most readers will agree – Buechel’s vision sure as heck isn’t your grandparents’ Whole Foods anymore. Digital screens showcasing Kraft Mac & Cheese in the pasta aisle? Green and white mini-robots roaming around in what looks like a clean room? WTF? The test is so bizarre that one has to ask: why would Buechel publicly get behind it? Because in the opinion of this expert, this idea is dead on arrival. The Strategic Disconnect Sure, the appeal of the idea is there, i.e. why should a Whole Foods shopper have to make more than one trip to do his or her grocery shopping? For example, I can almost picture one of the vaunted internal Amazon press releases behind…
