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My concern with this is that this will only accelerate the probability that Amazon Go merges with Whole Foods to have a cashier-free experience. >Shoppers, how

My concern with this is that this will only accelerate the probability that Amazon Go merges with Whole Foods to have a cashier-free experience. >Shoppers, however, have saved millions as a result of the shake-up. This is why you're going to have a tough time getting sympathy from the public, and why I think (for better or worse) Amazon will win the PR battle. The average person now has access to healthier grocery / purchasing options as Whole Foods pricing has come down. If prices go up, they'll just switch to Walmart or some other cheaper option - leading to WF losses, and even more layoffs.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
> The average person now has access to healthier grocery / purchasing options Because every other grocery store is selling poison? The average person doesn't even have a WF near them to shop at.
- twothamendment 8y ago
  Your comment made me search for the nearest one. According to Google Maps, the nearest Whole Foods Market is over 10 hours away. I guess I'll shop Half Foods Market like I always do.
  - jdck1326 8y ago
    >10 hours away Time isn't a very good measure of distance
    - anon12341234 8y ago
      Congratulations. This is the stupidest fucking comment I've read on HN all day.
    - alttab 8y ago
      Unless you live in Japan, because they all walk the same speed. Seriously, ask how far something is in Tokyo and see the response is in time
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      I find it amusing that technically, time is the best and only measure of distance, since the meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in 1/299792458 of a second.
    - Saavedro 8y ago
      i mean, if you're talking about how convenient is to shop there it kind of is? Doesn't matter if I'm technically close to a place if I gotta take a long detour to actually arrive.
      - jdck1326 8y ago
        I guess if you live somewhere where everyone has a car it makes more sense. I forgot I was on an American website for a moment.
    - knicholes 8y ago
      In Utah, because everything is pretty much off the I-15, we often measure distance in time, too, as that the speed limit is ~75 most of the way.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      It's the best measure of distance in determining how far away a destination is. Let's say you ask me where a store is, and I tell you it's only 500m away. "Great!", you think, "That's an easy walk!" No, it's not, because it's on the other side of a river, and there isn't a crossing particularly close. You'd much rather go to the store that's 1000m away because it's not across a river. Now you're probably going to say, OK, so let's restrict it to actually allowable paths ... but again, something a few kilometers away that doesn't have good road connections (and the ones that do are full of traffic) is actually much farther away in every way that matters than something that's 10km away but is a straight shot on an empty highway. Urban environments are complicated, and distance doesn't tell you as much as travel time does.
      - jdck1326 8y ago
        I normally just say "it's a twenty minute walk" or "it's a five minute drive"
rossdavidh 8y ago
In Texas, anyway (where WF started), other grocery chains have been passing them by. A big part of why WF sold to Amazon is that they are getting squeezed between co-ops and chains like HEB's "Central Market" stores, which have lots of organic produce at better prices and with better public image. Trader Joe's is another chain that has been encroaching on their space. I think WF was pushing the envelope on healthier and/or more socially responsible produce and other foodstuffs 20 years ago, but that ship has long since sailed. Amazon got them past their "best by" date.
- yurishimo 8y ago
  As a small side note, Central Market is also pushing into the online shopping model and using open source software to do it. A friend here in Dallas worked on their WooCommerce integration.
  - Kephael 8y ago
    WooCommerce vs the largest e-commerce platform in the world? I've been to the Amazon Go store and took a close look at the camera arrays, these toy retailers are whistling past the graveyard.
    - rossdavidh 8y ago
      Perhaps, but a decade ago people said that HEB/Central Market were doomed because WalMart was moving into groceries, and at that time WalMart was considered the unstoppable retail behemoth. If I were placing bets on who will do better in groceries ecommerce, I would bet on the company that has its entire focus on that, especially when they have a history of beating back big competitors who come from other retail sectors.
- nsnick 8y ago
  Sprouts is squeezing Whole Foods in the west.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
driverdan 8y ago
> The average person now has access to healthier grocery / purchasing options WF's food is not any healthier than the food you find in other stores.
- simonsarris 8y ago
  There are no added hormones in WF meat. There are no hydrogenated oils in any of their products. There are no phthalates in any of their beauty/wash products. Obviously you can define health however yo want, and you can scan the shelves of other stores for these same things. Maybe you can find a couple phthalate-free shampoos in Target, read a bunch of articles and memorize the good brands and hope they don't change. Or you could shop at WF.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    No added hormones is normal in most countries, but apparently in the USA you need to go out of your way to not do that.
    - zjaffee 8y ago
      The US also has radically cheaper groceries than virtually any other developed country.
      - mr_toad 8y ago
        Partly this is due to lower transport costs.
      - tpush 8y ago
        Nonsense. A quick Google search[0] shows that the following countries all have cheaper groceries than the US: Spain, Germany, Netherlands. [0] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-living/Prices-at-markets/Groceries-index#amount http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-livin...
    - perl4ever 8y ago
cliffordthedog 8y ago
> Amazon will win the PR battle Which is how corporations win the war. Know why you couldn't afford whole foods before? Because too many people are selfish and shortsighted and would rather save 1 dollar than ensure anyone else makes an extra 2 bucks an hour. Corporations, lobbyists, and government policy have been decimating unions for decades and the results are very apparent when you look at any graph of actual wages. Executives skyrocket, workers are flat at best.
cliffordthedog 8y ago
Amazon will do that the minute the math works out anyway. Encouraging workers to put up with worse and worse conditions out of fear of automation is just a race to the bottom that inevitably ends with automation anyway.
- aerotwelve 8y ago
  This is exactly it. Fast food companies have spent the past decade trying to scare everyone to death whenever the thought of raising the minimum wage comes up. We'll be forced to build self-checkout lanes and self-serve order kiosks if you raise it! You don't want that, do you? The scare tactics worked in much of the country; the federal minimum wage hasn't budged since 2009 and most states are at the same level. What did we get in exchange for that act of kindness towards the service sector? More self-checkout lanes and kiosks.
  - nsnick 8y ago
    Fast food chains are actually building automation. A lot of McDonalds have self ordering kiosks. Startups are working on automated cooking. Pretty soon fast food locations will have no workers.
icantdrive55 8y ago
I have not noticed a change in prices. They have around 20 sale items, and they might be a bit less then before the transfer? Everything else is a bit higher. It's like they added .50 to everything?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

> The average person now has access to healthier grocery / purchasing options Because every other grocery store is selling poison? The average person doesn't even have a WF near them to shop at.

twothamendment 8y ago
Your comment made me search for the nearest one. According to Google Maps, the nearest Whole Foods Market is over 10 hours away. I guess I'll shop Half Foods Market like I always do.
- jdck1326 8y ago
  >10 hours away Time isn't a very good measure of distance
  - anon12341234 8y ago
    Congratulations. This is the stupidest fucking comment I've read on HN all day.
  - alttab 8y ago
    Unless you live in Japan, because they all walk the same speed. Seriously, ask how far something is in Tokyo and see the response is in time
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    I find it amusing that technically, time is the best and only measure of distance, since the meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in 1/299792458 of a second.
  - Saavedro 8y ago
    i mean, if you're talking about how convenient is to shop there it kind of is? Doesn't matter if I'm technically close to a place if I gotta take a long detour to actually arrive.
    - jdck1326 8y ago
      I guess if you live somewhere where everyone has a car it makes more sense. I forgot I was on an American website for a moment.
  - knicholes 8y ago
    In Utah, because everything is pretty much off the I-15, we often measure distance in time, too, as that the speed limit is ~75 most of the way.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    It's the best measure of distance in determining how far away a destination is. Let's say you ask me where a store is, and I tell you it's only 500m away. "Great!", you think, "That's an easy walk!" No, it's not, because it's on the other side of a river, and there isn't a crossing particularly close. You'd much rather go to the store that's 1000m away because it's not across a river. Now you're probably going to say, OK, so let's restrict it to actually allowable paths ... but again, something a few kilometers away that doesn't have good road connections (and the ones that do are full of traffic) is actually much farther away in every way that matters than something that's 10km away but is a straight shot on an empty highway. Urban environments are complicated, and distance doesn't tell you as much as travel time does.
    - jdck1326 8y ago
      I normally just say "it's a twenty minute walk" or "it's a five minute drive"

rossdavidh 8y ago

In Texas, anyway (where WF started), other grocery chains have been passing them by. A big part of why WF sold to Amazon is that they are getting squeezed between co-ops and chains like HEB's "Central Market" stores, which have lots of organic produce at better prices and with better public image. Trader Joe's is another chain that has been encroaching on their space. I think WF was pushing the envelope on healthier and/or more socially responsible produce and other foodstuffs 20 years ago, but that ship has long since sailed. Amazon got them past their "best by" date.

yurishimo 8y ago
As a small side note, Central Market is also pushing into the online shopping model and using open source software to do it. A friend here in Dallas worked on their WooCommerce integration.
- Kephael 8y ago
  WooCommerce vs the largest e-commerce platform in the world? I've been to the Amazon Go store and took a close look at the camera arrays, these toy retailers are whistling past the graveyard.
  - rossdavidh 8y ago
    Perhaps, but a decade ago people said that HEB/Central Market were doomed because WalMart was moving into groceries, and at that time WalMart was considered the unstoppable retail behemoth. If I were placing bets on who will do better in groceries ecommerce, I would bet on the company that has its entire focus on that, especially when they have a history of beating back big competitors who come from other retail sectors.
nsnick 8y ago
Sprouts is squeezing Whole Foods in the west.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

driverdan 8y ago

> The average person now has access to healthier grocery / purchasing options WF's food is not any healthier than the food you find in other stores.

simonsarris 8y ago
There are no added hormones in WF meat. There are no hydrogenated oils in any of their products. There are no phthalates in any of their beauty/wash products. Obviously you can define health however yo want, and you can scan the shelves of other stores for these same things. Maybe you can find a couple phthalate-free shampoos in Target, read a bunch of articles and memorize the good brands and hope they don't change. Or you could shop at WF.
- astrodust 8y ago
  No added hormones is normal in most countries, but apparently in the USA you need to go out of your way to not do that.
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    The US also has radically cheaper groceries than virtually any other developed country.
    - mr_toad 8y ago
      Partly this is due to lower transport costs.
    - tpush 8y ago
      Nonsense. A quick Google search[0] shows that the following countries all have cheaper groceries than the US: Spain, Germany, Netherlands. [0] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-living/Prices-at-markets/Groceries-index#amount http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-livin...
  - perl4ever 8y ago

cliffordthedog 8y ago

> Amazon will win the PR battle Which is how corporations win the war. Know why you couldn't afford whole foods before? Because too many people are selfish and shortsighted and would rather save 1 dollar than ensure anyone else makes an extra 2 bucks an hour. Corporations, lobbyists, and government policy have been decimating unions for decades and the results are very apparent when you look at any graph of actual wages. Executives skyrocket, workers are flat at best.

cliffordthedog 8y ago

Amazon will do that the minute the math works out anyway. Encouraging workers to put up with worse and worse conditions out of fear of automation is just a race to the bottom that inevitably ends with automation anyway.

aerotwelve 8y ago
This is exactly it. Fast food companies have spent the past decade trying to scare everyone to death whenever the thought of raising the minimum wage comes up. We'll be forced to build self-checkout lanes and self-serve order kiosks if you raise it! You don't want that, do you? The scare tactics worked in much of the country; the federal minimum wage hasn't budged since 2009 and most states are at the same level. What did we get in exchange for that act of kindness towards the service sector? More self-checkout lanes and kiosks.
- nsnick 8y ago
  Fast food chains are actually building automation. A lot of McDonalds have self ordering kiosks. Startups are working on automated cooking. Pretty soon fast food locations will have no workers.

icantdrive55 8y ago

I have not noticed a change in prices. They have around 20 sale items, and they might be a bit less then before the transfer? Everything else is a bit higher. It's like they added .50 to everything?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]