I am not convinced that the destruction of WFM was entirely at the hands of Amazon. They were already deep into implementing profit maximizing cutbacks, staffing changes, standardization, consolidated sourcing, and new technology before Amazon had even finished the acquisition. They had all of the so-called experts in on multi-million dollar consulting deals, like Accenture and AlixPartners, writing new procedures and staffing models etc. before the company was put for sale. They had all of that in the works due to the activist investor problems (Jana Funds and others), and it wasn't enough to appease them due to the long time lines so they wound up selling. People were complaining about inferior quality national contract sourced produce replacing local growers, standardized recipes at food bars and restaurants, and mass culling or removal of specialty perimeter dining venues that had already happened by the day of the ownership change... They were complaining that Amazon overnight had destroyed the company. And worse, they failed to provide enough information about why these changes were being made so that the employees could understand the reason why they couldn't order as much as they wanted, had to set planograms for the first time, etc. so once again when all these changes were being implemented at the same time the ownership change happened the employees also thought Amazon was responsible. But it isn't reality. Aside from Amazon lockers and return desks, I am not convinced that Whole Foods would look any different than it does today if they hadn't acquired it.pseudo3d wrote: ↑January 30th, 2024, 11:44 amKroger/Albertsons seems more predicated on the Amazon Fresh expansion (remember, this was supposed to be some sort of game-changer, much like how Amazon Go was supposed to open hundreds of stores) than the other way around.brendenmoney wrote: ↑January 29th, 2024, 9:18 pm It wouldn't be surprising if Amazon is waiting for a decision on the Kroger/Albertsons merger to determine whether they really want to continue investing in Fresh, as competing with a newly expanded Kroger is the only reason at this point I could see as a good reason for Amazon to continue investing in it's Fresh stores, and even that, Amazon will still more likely be successful against them if they dropped Fresh and focused on Whole Foods and online grocery delivery regardless of the merger decision. If the merger falls through, I wouldn't be shocked if Amazon announces the closure/sale (and maybe a select few converted to Whole Foods) of all remaining Fresh stores within a couple days of the blocking of the merger.
Some SoCal Fresh stores, such as Corona, Whittier, La Habra, and Mission Viejo would be excellent locations for Whole Foods to take over, despite being on the smaller end in terms of store size.
I have considered the possibility of Amazon either buying or investing in Albertsons after the merger falls through.ClownLoach wrote: ↑January 30th, 2024, 9:29 am Third, I still have to wonder if they have something lined up with private equity folks to potentially offload Fresh and WFM together... And possibly to the next potential buyer of Albertsons (or Albertsons itself?) once Kroger gets blocked by the courts.
The problem would be how much of Amazon rubs off on Albertsons. If it's just to keep investors happy, give some bump to the Albertsons return counters, and a growth vehicle for the company, it's fine, but Amazon destroyed Whole Foods with its own policies and that could be bad for Albertsons when it comes to the fresh food departments. Or it could help...either way, there needs to be some sort of corporate separation due to the unions in Albertsons.
The big question is Whole Foods Market and its integration into Albertsons. In a way their business is obsolete as so much has changed since the 1990s when they were growing, but their wholly unique brand, their international expansion...it seems like it would be a poor fit; the only way I could see it working is if Albertsons (or whoever) does a massive purge/conversion of stores to bring it back to its original intention with only a few stores per metro area.
Where Amazon does NOT get a pass in my book is their failure to correct these problems. They saw and heard the negative customer and employee reaction to the WFM changes, but ignored them. They could have course corrected but chose not to.
But WFM management was running around swinging chainsaws everywhere they could to cut costs, and Amazon chose to ignore it, so I guess from that perspective it's their fault? Amazon has demonstrated that they really don't know much of anything about grocery aside from data mining; remember that they hired away a ton of Target people and basically picked their brains to build out Fresh. They obviously picked the wrong people since Target did a terrible job with foods, and now ironically we are seeing sparks of life in foods at Target for the first time in decades as new management has been installed. So I really have to question if Amazon is responsible for much of anything at WFM aside from the technology and delivery piece.
I would imagine that if somehow Albertsons was acquired by Amazon and merged in, that they would most likely let the Albertsons management take over the WFM and Fresh business entirely. I do think they would consider some format changes which could be problematic due to unions (like flipping some or all Pavilions into WFM, as well as converting some WFM to an Albertsons format). But in general I would expect Amazon would lay down some very limited expectations, add lockers and return desk, Prime discounts somewhere, and eventually integrate Flex employees and the Amazon app for pickup and delivery. Aside from that I think they would give Albertsons free reign and order them to fix the problems that customers perceive with today's WFM store, and I think they have the experience to do so.