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I think the customer is going to lose, eventually. I was chatting with a worker at WFM and they mentioned that WFM sends out inspectors to farms / suppliers to

I think the customer is going to lose, eventually. I was chatting with a worker at WFM and they mentioned that WFM sends out inspectors to farms / suppliers to make sure things are up to high standards. Now compare that with Amazon, who co-mingles inventory and can't even guarantee what I purchased was authentic. Also, will I pay more for Kale after reading a book on food nutrition? Will I have to put the food in the basket to know what the price is? I see two very different cultures. Time well tell, I guess.

gambiting 9y ago
What's WFM?
- nappy 9y ago
  Whole Foods Market. WFM was also their stock ticker.
guelo 9y ago
I always viewed Whole Foods much more cynically. Their supposed high quality is more about marketing to gullible liberals than anything else. The fact that they sell homeopathy sets off my scammer alarms.
- csydas 9y ago
  With regards to homeopathic remedies, I would argue find store that sells any health products that doesn't have at least a small shelf dedicated to homeopathic remedies. I agree with you that the basis for the homeopathic remedies is non-sense, but it also strikes me as a caveat emptor, to a certain point. As for the other half, are you suggesting that only those of liberal politics would ever buy organic or fresh produce, or be taken in by the marketing of Whole Foods? The statement reads as a non-sequitur, and I'm not sure how it is relevant. Whole Foods sells an image and a promise of organic, and I'm pretty sure they will meet the current US legal definition of organic for whatever they're selling. It's not a relevant factor for me when buying, but I wouldn't call people who do buy there "gullible", as I'm pretty sure Whole Foods is giving the customer exactly what they want.
  - guelo 9y ago
    I probably shouldn't have used liberals and derailed my thought with politics. I had more of a stereotype in my head that probably has less to do with politics, and more to do with having money, and a certain amount of guilt about money, and thinking you can use the money to ameliorate some of that guilt. This would be a very gullible stereotype to have as a customer and you could see how marketing would be tempted to go over the top making up new things to feel guilty about and new ways to spend money to feel less guilty about them.
    - origami777 9y ago
      I think it's much simpler than that. People that have the money to buy healthy food simply like to buy healthy food. The food there is excellent. I'm not rich by any standard and I love shopping there because to me it is high quality. Go to a typical large grocery store deli, then go to Whole Foods deli, you can easily see which one is better. I'm not sure where you came up with the "I feel guilty about the money I have so I'm going to spend it on foods that are healthy (or claim to be healthy, I'm not sure if you're making that connection or not)" construct. Seems like a reach.
      - guelo 9y ago
        I am making that connection. I don't think there's much difference between hawking homeopathic medicine and expensive "Veganic Sprouted Ancient Maize Flakes".
      - marcoperaza 9y ago
        Organic food has nothing to do with health. Organic refers to the type of fertilizers and pesticides used and is 100% a gimmick. Abandoning inorganic chemical fertilizers and pesticides would lead to mass starvation across the world. And in terms of the food quality, there is no evidence that it makes any meaningful difference.
        JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        Being organic doesn't make food healthier. Whole Foods just seems to have paid attention to procuring good produce. For the premium they charge, they can afford to buy the best product.
- Ensorceled 9y ago
  In Toronto, produce we buy at Whole Foods lasts longer once we get it home than any other market or supermarket, even Loblaws and our local market. Don't even get me started on Sobey's, fresh produce from Sobey's often spoils and goes into the green bin the next day.
bambax 9y ago
I buy most things online, yet I don't understand how you can buy "fresh" anything online: don't you need to see it, test it, smell it? I would never buy a melon that I can't smell first, or a fish without seeing its eyes, or shrimps that I can't see how blue the head is, or cheese that I can't press, etc. How is this going to work? If you don't care about these things, isn't it easier to buy canned goods or go to the restaurant? What are the customers who want fresh but don't need to see / touch first?
- daemin 9y ago
  One of the reasons I can't seem to buy groceries online no matter how lazy I feel like being.
- michaelt 9y ago
  I don't know about the things you cook, but when I inspect things in the grocery store I'm generally checking for (a) bruises/damage and (b) being past its best. Online grocery retailers have their employees (and stock management practices) doing those checks for you. A short-sighted company might think it was profitable to send bottom-of-the-barrel leftovers to online customers - but in the long term there's much more money to be made by sending a family $100 of good quality groceries every week forever than sending them $100 of poor quality groceries once. So retailers have every incentive to get the checks right. With that said, if you're an expert cook, it's possible you're sensitive to nuances the average person would overlook. In that case online shopping might not meet all your needs.
  - bambax 9y ago
    Yes it's true it would be counter-productive to sell bad products. However, when you shop in person you can choose, and so the best eye gets the best products (or at least, so she thinks!) And it's not only about quality: sometimes the same customer wants different things. Regarding ripening for example, sometimes I want very ripe fruits to use now, and sometimes I want greener ones because I intend to use them in a few days. Same for cheese, what you want depends on when you intend to use it. I don't want a Camembert hard as stone to eat tonight. I want one that's "almost bad". How do I tell all this to Amazon Fresh?
s_dev 9y ago
Consumers rarely lose out from more competition entering a market -- I don't see why this situation would be an exception.
- cowsandmilk 9y ago
  how does an acquisition equate to more competition? Amazon opening its own grocery chain = more competition; that is not what this is.
  - s_dev 9y ago
    That acquisition is Amazon entering the brick and mortar grocery market which is new for Amazon.
grecy 9y ago
Your comment is basically saying you think the high standards and customer experience that Whole Foods has cultivated will stop under Amazon's leadership. If that's the case, and there is sufficient demand, another "Whole Foods" will sprout and fill that market demand.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >If that's the case, and there is sufficient demand, another "Whole Foods" will sprout and fill that market demand. Other possibilities: a) there's no sufficient demand, so that's the new situation the few discerning customers have to deal with forever b) there's demand, but it's no sufficient enough to support two such big chains, so at best smaller, scattered around the country competitors arise, with jacked-up prices to support the higher standards (since they are not WF scale) c) there's sufficient demand, but the Amazon merger has given WF so much power that they can crush any challenger d) there's sufficient demand, but for a new challenger to emerge, gain traction and cover even half of the area WF covers will take close to a decade Real markets are not like some economic fairy tale...

gambiting 9y ago

What's WFM?

nappy 9y ago
Whole Foods Market. WFM was also their stock ticker.

guelo 9y ago

I always viewed Whole Foods much more cynically. Their supposed high quality is more about marketing to gullible liberals than anything else. The fact that they sell homeopathy sets off my scammer alarms.

csydas 9y ago
With regards to homeopathic remedies, I would argue find store that sells any health products that doesn't have at least a small shelf dedicated to homeopathic remedies. I agree with you that the basis for the homeopathic remedies is non-sense, but it also strikes me as a caveat emptor, to a certain point. As for the other half, are you suggesting that only those of liberal politics would ever buy organic or fresh produce, or be taken in by the marketing of Whole Foods? The statement reads as a non-sequitur, and I'm not sure how it is relevant. Whole Foods sells an image and a promise of organic, and I'm pretty sure they will meet the current US legal definition of organic for whatever they're selling. It's not a relevant factor for me when buying, but I wouldn't call people who do buy there "gullible", as I'm pretty sure Whole Foods is giving the customer exactly what they want.
- guelo 9y ago
  I probably shouldn't have used liberals and derailed my thought with politics. I had more of a stereotype in my head that probably has less to do with politics, and more to do with having money, and a certain amount of guilt about money, and thinking you can use the money to ameliorate some of that guilt. This would be a very gullible stereotype to have as a customer and you could see how marketing would be tempted to go over the top making up new things to feel guilty about and new ways to spend money to feel less guilty about them.
  - origami777 9y ago
    I think it's much simpler than that. People that have the money to buy healthy food simply like to buy healthy food. The food there is excellent. I'm not rich by any standard and I love shopping there because to me it is high quality. Go to a typical large grocery store deli, then go to Whole Foods deli, you can easily see which one is better. I'm not sure where you came up with the "I feel guilty about the money I have so I'm going to spend it on foods that are healthy (or claim to be healthy, I'm not sure if you're making that connection or not)" construct. Seems like a reach.
    - guelo 9y ago
      I am making that connection. I don't think there's much difference between hawking homeopathic medicine and expensive "Veganic Sprouted Ancient Maize Flakes".
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      Organic food has nothing to do with health. Organic refers to the type of fertilizers and pesticides used and is 100% a gimmick. Abandoning inorganic chemical fertilizers and pesticides would lead to mass starvation across the world. And in terms of the food quality, there is no evidence that it makes any meaningful difference.
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        Being organic doesn't make food healthier. Whole Foods just seems to have paid attention to procuring good produce. For the premium they charge, they can afford to buy the best product.
Ensorceled 9y ago
In Toronto, produce we buy at Whole Foods lasts longer once we get it home than any other market or supermarket, even Loblaws and our local market. Don't even get me started on Sobey's, fresh produce from Sobey's often spoils and goes into the green bin the next day.

bambax 9y ago

I buy most things online, yet I don't understand how you can buy "fresh" anything online: don't you need to see it, test it, smell it? I would never buy a melon that I can't smell first, or a fish without seeing its eyes, or shrimps that I can't see how blue the head is, or cheese that I can't press, etc. How is this going to work? If you don't care about these things, isn't it easier to buy canned goods or go to the restaurant? What are the customers who want fresh but don't need to see / touch first?

daemin 9y ago
One of the reasons I can't seem to buy groceries online no matter how lazy I feel like being.
michaelt 9y ago
I don't know about the things you cook, but when I inspect things in the grocery store I'm generally checking for (a) bruises/damage and (b) being past its best. Online grocery retailers have their employees (and stock management practices) doing those checks for you. A short-sighted company might think it was profitable to send bottom-of-the-barrel leftovers to online customers - but in the long term there's much more money to be made by sending a family $100 of good quality groceries every week forever than sending them $100 of poor quality groceries once. So retailers have every incentive to get the checks right. With that said, if you're an expert cook, it's possible you're sensitive to nuances the average person would overlook. In that case online shopping might not meet all your needs.
- bambax 9y ago
  Yes it's true it would be counter-productive to sell bad products. However, when you shop in person you can choose, and so the best eye gets the best products (or at least, so she thinks!) And it's not only about quality: sometimes the same customer wants different things. Regarding ripening for example, sometimes I want very ripe fruits to use now, and sometimes I want greener ones because I intend to use them in a few days. Same for cheese, what you want depends on when you intend to use it. I don't want a Camembert hard as stone to eat tonight. I want one that's "almost bad". How do I tell all this to Amazon Fresh?

s_dev 9y ago

Consumers rarely lose out from more competition entering a market -- I don't see why this situation would be an exception.

cowsandmilk 9y ago
how does an acquisition equate to more competition? Amazon opening its own grocery chain = more competition; that is not what this is.
- s_dev 9y ago
  That acquisition is Amazon entering the brick and mortar grocery market which is new for Amazon.

grecy 9y ago

Your comment is basically saying you think the high standards and customer experience that Whole Foods has cultivated will stop under Amazon's leadership. If that's the case, and there is sufficient demand, another "Whole Foods" will sprout and fill that market demand.

coldtea 9y ago
>If that's the case, and there is sufficient demand, another "Whole Foods" will sprout and fill that market demand. Other possibilities: a) there's no sufficient demand, so that's the new situation the few discerning customers have to deal with forever b) there's demand, but it's no sufficient enough to support two such big chains, so at best smaller, scattered around the country competitors arise, with jacked-up prices to support the higher standards (since they are not WF scale) c) there's sufficient demand, but the Amazon merger has given WF so much power that they can crush any challenger d) there's sufficient demand, but for a new challenger to emerge, gain traction and cover even half of the area WF covers will take close to a decade Real markets are not like some economic fairy tale...