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.