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Amazon is buying Whole Foods

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by Rockets34Legend, Jun 16, 2017.

  1. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    You are dreaming. When automation causes lower prices, consumers will choose to save money, period.

    Competitors won't hesitate one bit to follow first-movers because their survival will depend on it.
     
  2. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    Any word yet whether Amazon will bring discounts to Whole Food via some type of special Prime Membership.

    You pretty much never see WF offer weekly discounts like a Kroger, or much less a Costco. Not to say WF's high-end brands will ever come down to Kroger prices on their low-end stuff, but a discount of any sort would get me into the store more, for sure.
     
  3. justtxyank

    justtxyank Contributing Member

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    This is a weird reference, but your post made me think of an old movie my wife loves "You've got Mail."

    Everyone rallies to save this poor little book store from the big bad store running them out of business. In the end (spoiler alert) it doesn't matter and the store fails.

    There are "many people" just like you, but reality is that in the end almost all of us will end up giving in to lower prices. It's a sad reality.
     
    Nook, Brown Lost It and RedRedemption like this.
  4. Mathloom

    Mathloom Contributing Member

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    No, that's just your/our generation. It's not something that will necessarily persist. We need to grow out of the idea that all our shitty habits will be transferred perfectly for eternity.

    The truth is we are heading for mass unrest because the ability to buy things has stagnated for 40 years and now the time has come where we have robots who can take slices out of the pie leaving one generation of people who don't have time to adapt or money to survive. What's worse is that your enemies are eagerly anticipating this pocket of fury and your representatives are anticipating another red-scare type of assault on grass roots institutions.
     
  5. Mr. Brightside

    Mr. Brightside Contributing Member

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    I think there are more in the younger generations , who trust a machine over a human for most things.

    There is no such thing as too much technology. You are either for innovation or progress or against it. Everybody thought ATM machines would reduce banks, but bank locations have increased over the years since you need fewer people and cashiers to run every location.

    The idea of having a no skill job is diminishing and that is a good thing. Maybe some folks will pay attention in school more. Machines and robots increase productivity and productivity adds to the national GDP.
     
  6. Brown Lost It

    Brown Lost It Member

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    idiots need low skilled jobs though. shoukd we expect more of them?
     
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  7. Brown Lost It

    Brown Lost It Member

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    in the beginning it lowers prices to get people on board, but in the end it does not. All it does is add profit.

    all I know is those machines at the grocery store didn't lower any prices, neither did the one at the post office, neither did the one at the bank. while I am not against them, The way Amazon has it planned everyone including customers and competitors are going to hop on board once they see how efficient it is. this Tech has been out for a while and a lot of companies are hesitant to install it because they don't want to be the first to get in trouble for it by the public.
     
    #47 Brown Lost It, Jun 17, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2017
  8. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    In a competitive environment, consumers will buy where the price is lower. Competitors that don't quickly move to lower costs will die That is the free market.

    Whatever hesitance you believe companies had in the past will cease to exist. The technology is close to being ready.
     
  9. RedRedemption

    RedRedemption Contributing Member

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    Walmart treats their employees like **** and pays minimum wage. People still shop there because their prices are the lowest in town.

    Above all else:
    A) People hate dealing with other people.
    B) People hate waiting.
    C) People love low costs as long as price/value is satisfactory.

    Automated stores will solve all of that. Just like Amazon and online retailers annihilated traditional B&M.
     
    Sajan likes this.
  10. Ziggy

    Ziggy QUEEN ANON

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    C leads to A+B, causing people that hate those things to go to places like WF.

    I always thought the typical grocery store business model was to break near even/make some profit on the grocery store, but rack up revenue by renting out everything else in the shopping center you bought and now anchor. How will THAT apply to Amazon? Or is that NOT the WF model.
     
  11. RedRedemption

    RedRedemption Contributing Member

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    If anything Amazon subsidizes their B&M grocery stores by scaling back on their R&D reinvestment. I think Amazon can push out higher margins than traditional grocers though.
     
  12. REEKO_HTOWN

    REEKO_HTOWN I'm Rich Biiiiaaatch!

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    Walmart has lost millions of customers with with that strategy.
     
  13. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    I don't think their primary business is real estate, albeit all Big Box stores have large real estate departments for buying land. And I don't think they have the luxury of only picking locations where they can own the entire center -- Walmart is probably better at that, and Walmart can get ppl to drive farther.

    Think of every Kroger's in town. Do you think they own the entire shopping center everywhere? If not, do they have a large variance to pricing at the Buffalo Speedway/59 or River Oaks Shopping Centrr stores vs their other stores? I'm willing to bet they don't own those two shopping centers and I'm pretty sure their prices do not fluctuates store to store much.

    Btw I think this is probably easy to look up in Kroger's 10-K.

    wrt Whole Foods, they never struck me as owning any shopping centers in Houston, beyond what they used. They were just the Anchor Tenant or on a block all to themselves like the Kirby / Alabama store to the huge one in Austin. Then you have stores in prime locations in the likes of SF and Manhattan where there are no other large grocery stores, and I assume they might not even own the land their store is on, much less more of the block.
     
  14. TheRealist137

    TheRealist137 Member

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    Amazon is going to ruin the Whole Foods brand by cutting jobs and slashing prices in order to compete with Walmart.
     
  15. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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  16. leroy

    leroy Contributing Member

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    They opened a Walmart with that capability on Kuykendahl, just south of The Woodlands.

    I've done the online grocery shopping (HEB via Instacart) a couple of times (when I was dealing with the early stages of a ruptured achillies). Definitely more expensive and fewer choices. Not something I'm going to use again unless I really need to. It was time consuming to pick everything out and cost more than it should. Then I didn't get much of what I wanted...ending up with substitutions.

    If you go into certain grocery stores during the day, it'll be more Instacart and others like them people than actual shoppers.
     
  17. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Contributing Member

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    Walmart losing millions of customers is a good strategy it seems. Its seems i only find parking at the back of the lot, spend 3x as long weaving through all the people in the isles and another 10 mins trying to check out. Yes, I shop at Walmart from time to time and I do eat McDonalds from time to time. And no, I didnt vote for Trump.
     
  18. Svpernaut

    Svpernaut Contributing Member

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    I use Amazon Prime Now to order produce and groceries every few weeks, and can't wait until when I can order more produce variations and fresh meat and poultry utilizing the Whole Foods supply chains and stores.

    Walmart now allows for free pickup, which is a smart move in my opinion. If I didn't have a Costco membership I'd definitely utilizing it for fresh produce, meat and poultry pickup.
     
  19. Shroopy2

    Shroopy2 Contributing Member

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    I'm the same. I stopped using checkout machines in stores entirely, I use human cashiers only. And I haven't bought from Amazon for years. (I don't want them or anyone sending a drone to my house to drop things off, no thanks lol). Even the people CREATING the tech are scared of its dangers, so why should I or anyone blindly hand off our livelihood to it then

    Its ALL IN VAIN, though. Automation and machines WILL take over. Its I need one mini-humane effort in my consciense of helping humans stay working a little bit longer. I just dont have THAT much contempt about humans I guess.
     
  20. Brown Lost It

    Brown Lost It Member

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    I always use the machines at the checkouts, **** people

    also, these machines didn't lower any prices. I remember in the beginning when they first installed them in grocery stores they did but it was not long before they Took advantage and started marking everything up to make more money.

    what about these low skilled people who need jobs? if we become so automated what's left for them? will crime rates rise? Will we see bums everywhere?

    this is the future, it probably won't hit us as hard as our kids and honestly **** our kids
     
    Shroopy2 likes this.

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