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Comment by makecheck | Hacker News Reader

Most Whole Foods stores I’ve seen aren’t exactly hurting for business and the parking lot is basically full. If their stuff becomes cheaper, that’ll drive demand way up, at which point they’ll need to have more ways to buy. That might mean building more stores but my guess is that Amazon is expecting online shopping to go up once it becomes a bit too crowded at the actual stores.

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Anecdotal evidence but the Whole Foods I have visited in the Boston area are a lot less crowded than other supermarkets.

Yeah maybe it's just my location every time I've been to Whole Foods it hasn't really been that busy but the inside has seemed insanely packed because the aisles are so small and the displays are laid out poorly. It's hard to get through.

My whole foods are also much much smaller than my local Hy-Vee, or price chopper super markets.

Good lord I miss Hy-Vee. I used to live in that area of the midwest and I moved a few years back... I miss nothing more than Hy-Vee. It might sound weird to be so attached to a grocery store, but Meijer is just not the same.

They really make fantastic bread.

In my market Wegmans came in and demonstrated higher quality and better pricing. I'll give Wegmans my business first.

I wonder which one you're talking about. The Whole Foods adjacent Alewife has a large parking lot and it's often nearly full.

I am talking mainly about the one in Beacon St, Somerville. Also about others in the area.

Sure, but it seems like they have their own niche market. Aka a supermarket for people who aren't trying to save pennies and would pay a little more for a less crowded and high quality shopping experience. It's the same thing as restaurants ranging anywhere from 5$ meals to 50$+ meals.

It isn't the "shopping experience" for us. It's the organic produce. It's crappy everywhere else and good at Whole Foods, so we shop there. Meat share for, well, meat, and Wegmans for everything else. But the vegetables on our table come from Whole Foods.

The produce is insanely overpriced.

If you compare it to the same product code somewhere else, perhaps. Your parent is stating they perceive the quality at Whole Foods to be substantially better, and worth the price premium. Perhaps they lack alternative reliable sources of high-quality organic produce you might have access to?

That's about the size of it. When you factor in that we've had to discard as much as half of the produce we purchased from other sellers due to it already being spoiled, the actual value for the price at Whole Foods is higher.

This is over a 3 month period; total amounts (in dollars) are for produce only:

    Store      | Total| #| Avg
    -----------+------+--+----
    Luckys     | 91.86|51|1.80
    Publix     |133.09|58|2.30
    Whole Foods|181.58|76|2.39

We tend to buy more specialty-type produce at Whole Foods in addition to the staples (apples, bananas). We tend to only buy staple produce items at Publix and at Lucky's.

My experience is that the organic produce variety is slightly better at WF, but the quality no better than the local organic coops or the better coventional grocers.

But that's going to be highly variable by location and who the local competitors are.

We don't need to be anecdotal about it, we have data.

2015 sales: $15.389 billion

2016 sales: $15.724 billion

Their business growth has stopped. In fact, it's that negative turn (in regards to the perception of WFM as a growth machine) that halved their stock, which led to Amazon acquiring them.

To make matters worse for the company, their net income had been contracting for years.

2014: $579m net income

2015: $536m net income

2016: $507m net income

Amazon will hack that down further, basically taking WFM where it was already going as their margins were eroding for years.

What was it that Jeff said? "Your margin is my opportunity" I believe. Anyone who hoped to see WF as a profit center aught find a new past time.

But yes, this was a company that found a niche, grew into it and could go elsewhere. Amazon will presumably change that, though in the end I doubt WF will be recognizable.

Amazon is rarely destructive against its acquisitions. I don't think they will really change WF all that much, at least on the outside.

> If their stuff becomes cheaper, that’ll drive demand way up, at which point they’ll need to have more ways to buy

Or resolve the bottlenecks.

I have a nice spot on my roof for the Whole Foods drone!

Most people are pretty set in their habits when it comes to groceries; I'd be surprised to see that happen.

You probably only go during peak hours.

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