The Amazonification of Whole Foods | Fast Five Shorts

The amazonification, which is a new word that apparently we all need to have in our dictionaries.

The Amazonification of Whole Foods may now be closer than it has ever appeared before.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is shaking up the natural foods grocer with robots in the back room and Pepsi outside the exit in its push for a bigger slice of the supermarket business.

For example, a new feature lurks in the back room of a Whole Foods Market in suburban Philadelphia called the Shopbots, a group of robots that fetch Tide Pods and Pepsi for shoppers who aren't fully satisfied by Whole Foods selection of organic kale and craft beer.

In the beverage section, shoppers face a selection of prebiotic sodas free of GMOs and artificial colors.

However, if they really just want a Pepsi, they can pull out their phones, open the Amazon app and ask, and the Shopbots will spring into action.

The soda will be ready to pick up in minutes.

And in a separate trial in Chicago, the Pepsi is even more visible there.

Amazon has cleared their coffee shop and seating area in the city's flagship Whole Foods, installing in its place a 3,800 square foot grocery kiosk called Amazon Grocery, filled with brands like Kraft Mac and Cheese and Chips Ahoy.

Chris, as the biggest Doritos and Pepsi fan out there, are you buying or selling the idea that Amazon intends to, to allow us to buy both of those things at Whole Foods in the long term?

I think I am buying that.

That is the ultimate plan here.

And I'm curious what you think.

This story is really, really interesting to me.

I mean, we talked about it a while back on our show that they were contemplating testing this and I guess now it's live.

And the funny thing I think is like the 3,600foot square foot kiosk, that's not a kiosk, that's a freaking convenience store at that size.

Right?

So, so, like, makes me think that these tests, you know, that, that Amazon's moving in this direction because these tests are so strange that it feels to me like someone at Amazon probably sat down at one point in time and wrote a vaunted Amazon press release of what if you could get Whole Foods products and your average grocery store products all in the same trip?

Imagine that world.

And so when you put it that way, I can see the allure of the concept because that idea just doesn't exist in the marketplace.

But in my opinion, as I've said before, there's a reason for that.

It's because the mass market doesn't want it.

If it did, the buyers at Walmart, Target and Kroger would devote more of their shelf space to what Whole Foods actually sells.

So if I play this out, all roads lead down the same path.

To me that over time, Whole Foods looks less like we know it today and more like your average grocery store with no real points of competitive differentiation.

Now with that said, I can get behind the milk with my electronics idea that Andrew Jassy was, you know, purporting to talk about in the media last week.

Given where Whole Foods stores are and where they're located, that could be valuable in and of itself to Amazon for the online delivery business.

So I have to consider that.

But the whole thing, at the end of the day makes me very, very sad because if any of what I said is true, Amazon is essentially destroying a once proud brand and a brand that in my opinion, could still, still thrive in the marketplaces on its own and for its own purpose of its design.

Yeah, I mean, I think they, they have even more of a chance to thrive.

They're an established brand.

And when you look at some of the competitors out there of Trader Joe's and Sprouts and other, other spaces in their, in their same kind of organic, best quality food and produce space, I think the Whole Foods has the best chance to do that.

And I think the other thing that this, this makes me wonder is like Sprouts and Trader Joe's, we've talked to their teams at length and they know they're an extra trip.

Whole Foods knows it's an extra trip for most people.

And if they want the Doritos, they want the Pepsi.

All that is shelf, stable stuff that's easy to order online through a variety of other places or.

I, I was thinking last night about the use cases, like if, if you're a Whole Foods shopper and that's where you get all your food, what, what are those times where you're really going to get the Doritos and the Pepsi?

Maybe it's a Super bowl party, maybe it's what, Whatever, like, that's not a common thing that you're doing.

And so in that case, like, why wouldn't you just make a trip to a Target so you can get all the things that you need in that scenario.

So I, I think that this is just a really disappointing decision for Amazon to make with the Whole Foods brand that's been so beloved and so established for so long.

And you know, I think like you said, if this starts to go the direction where they're just merging Everything together.

There's nothing as a shopper for me.

There's no reason for me to go to that Whole Foods.

It's more expensive like it there.

I can just, I can go to Aldi, I can go to Walmart, I can go to all these other places and get those things.

If you're not going to stick to what really, really was at your core and, and why I go to Whole Foods.

So the, the one last thing I'd say too is I think this also will start to put more onus on the shopper because when I go into Whole Foods right now, for the most part I know like my ingredients are clean source.

Like I don't have to think about it now if you start adding Doritos and Pepsi and all kinds of other stuff to your aisles now I have to spend time in the aisles trying to discern like what, what are the ingredients in this product?

Are they clean?

Are they going to be like locally sourced?

Now I have more work to do.

So I'm just, Can you tell I'm not, not a big fan of what I am?

Yeah, I can't tell you're not a big fan.

Although I do want to push you a little bit because you didn't actually answer the question.

You're not a fan of the idea.

But the question that you asked me was actually, do you think Amazon is going to do this in the long run?

If you had to guess right now, is this what they're doing or is this the Wall Street Journal just running with a test and trying to, you know, get it salacious as the Amazon ification as you described in the beginning?

What do you think?

I do think that this is what the Amazon's doing.

I think they think that they have to make this is like the last ditch effort for the grocery business, that of Amazon and that, and they're going to turn Whole Foods into what they wanted Amazon Grocery to be.

And I just, I don't think it's going to work.

Wow, okay.

We both thought the same thing.