Amazon Deal Could Slash Prices At Whole Foods

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The grocery world was taken by storm last week when Amazon decided to acquire Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. It’s only natural that people would be on the edge of their seats, wondering what exactly Amazon could do to make the influential health food store more accessible to the masses.

The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, will aim to keep Whole Food’s reputation for high-quality fresh foods while cutting costs to make it more affordable for everyone, according to an article by Bloomberg. In order to the cut costs, Amazon plans to “reduce headcount and change inventory to lower prices.” This could mean saying goodbye to cashiers and human-to-human interaction. If this were to happen, cashiers would likely be replaced by automated check-out technology. While we’re already familiar with self-checkouts, Amazon could take it to the next level.

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We know from the Amazon Go concept, launched in 2016, with its “just walk out” technology that Amazon has the resources to create a no checkout required operation part of Whole Foods. You just download an app, enter the store, take the products you want and leave. They keep track of items with a virtual cart and when you’re done shopping, you just walk right out and they’ll charge your account afterwards and send a receipt. Pretty cool.

The idea is to make Whole Foods competitive with big retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in order to attract low- and middle-income shoppers. There’s also the possibility of introducing Whole Foods private label products, which will help the company to compete on price and open up opportunities for developing their own brands with mass appeal.

None of these changes are set into motion just yet, but there’s a lot to look forward to. Someone needed to step up and make healthy, fresh foods more attainable and this Amazon deal could be the answer.