Amazon quickly narrows the price gap between Whole Foods and Kroger

With the personal assistant devices such as the Echo and Echo Dot and their Dash Buttons to simply press when a consumer needs more of a popular product, the acquisition of the health foods store shouldn’t be a surprise to the general public, also given the fact that many Whole Foods products are now sold on Amazon’s massive website.

For all the obvious differences between the businesses, one could draw some parallels with the speed at which Amazon raced to create a broad and unmatched ecosystem for its Alexa voice assistant, or the pace at which Amazon Web Services (AWS) has rolled out one new service after another to maintain a feature set lead against Microsoft Corp.

Monday, Aug. 28 marked the first day that Whole Foods is officially owned by Amazon.

My perception of Whole Foods Market’s has been that they are overpriced for the same food quality I can get elsewhere.

“If [Amazon] could offer more discounts on organic produce, that would be a definite plus”, she told Food Dive. Those who watch the industry expect Amazon to push further into grocery deliveries, among other things. The Echo Dot, a smaller version, was advertised for $44.99. Amazon’s Prime will become the loyalty program for Whole Foods – and its the crem de la crem of loyalty programs.

It’s rumored that Whole Foods will be cutting even more prices in the future, and these green signs around the store signal even items that will be cheaper in the months to come. “Also yet to be seen is how they might transform the checkout experience”. But with Whole Foods, the online retailer has positioned itself early on as a low price leader. Kroger has over 2,600 stores in more rural areas than the likes of Whole Foods. Instead, companies best positioned to fend off Amazon might be the low-price players – these are the companies that know how to contend on the ultra-low end, such as Lidl and Aldi.

– A half-gallon of organic whole milk was $3.49, down from $3.99, a 13 percent discount. Organic avocados-the primary obstacle to millennial homeownership are down from $2.79 to $1.99. “The whole intent of this [merger] is to retain loyalists, but also to attract an entirely new consumerwho was held back because of price”. At the bottom of the sign were the two logos, together at last: Whole Foods + Amazon.

Boneless rib eye prices dropped to $13.99 per pound from $16.99 in downtown Los Angeles, a reduction of nearly 18 percent, while the price for “responsibly farmed” Atlantic salmon filets fell to $9.99 per pound from $13.99, down almost 29 percent.

– A dozen large organic eggs were $3.99, down 7 percent from $4.29 on Friday.