Amazon’s Friday morning announcement that it is buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion has the potential to upend business-as-usual in the grocery industry and will certainly send its bricks-and-mortar competitors across the retail spectrum scrambling to get a handle on the ramifications. (A good Friday morning to you, Walmart and Target).
With Whole Foods and its national grocery distribution system onboard, Amazon’s online grocery play just got real serious. With a built DC infrastructure and 400+ Whole Foods serving as potential Amazon Fresh pickup locations, Amazon looks to have scored a win. The figure below leverages store-locations data from the Chain Store Guide’s Chain Supermarkets Locations database to map out Whole Foods’ built presence.
In addition, Whole Foods’ institutional knowledge base (CEO John Mackey will stay on with the company) and its appealing customer base, many of whom are sure to be existing Amazon Prime customers, bring real value to Amazon.
Chain Store Guide’s business intelligence and research teams will keep our clients, our customers and our databases updated as this deal plays out. In addition to extensive Whole Foods personnel records (including 48 executives and 47 buyers, alone) Chain Store Guide’s Supermarket, Grocery & Convenience Store Chains Database contains 2,800 companies and 19,000+ personnel records, 13,900 of which feature full digital contact information.