> In the near term, the Whole Foods purchase worries some analysts most because it immediately gives Amazon another infrastructural advantage: more than 400 small warehouses, spread out across some of the most affluent (and Amazon-using) neighborhoods in the United States. They fret that Amazon’s logistical advantages—its network of warehouses, delivery routes, and cargo jets across North America—have given it an unbeatable advantage over other firms.

Super disagree with that one. WF stores pay a premium for location and are full of, you know, food. Amazon has opened up a in-city distribution center in my city - not surprisingly in a closed down Sears location. Its in a crappy part of town, by railroad tracks and the home depot. They use it for some limited pickups and uber-style delivery drivers. There's no reason they'd need the kind of setup WF has in our area - either ultra urban locations or suburban with tons of parking when they can just pickup closing brink and mortars in undesirable locations.

Grocery is hard for a bunch of reason, one of key ones being location. Why you'd give up that location to use to dispatch items out of it beyond me, and I suspect not what Amazon is intending here.