Amazon is buying Whole Foods in a deal valued at $13.7 billion

[Mackin USA]

For Whole Foods workers, fears of robots, drones and culture clash

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-whole-foods-m-a-workers-idUSKBN1972VI

[Mackin USA]

LUV The Headline

"Amazon eats the world"

"http://theweek.com/articles/706484/amazon-eats-world

[ergophobe]

It must be getting so hard to write for The Onion. More and more, real world headlines and Onion headlines are indistinguishable

[littleman]

The real reason Amazon buying Whole Foods terrifies the competition

[Mackin USA]

Amazon Robots Poised to Revamp How Whole Foods Runs Warehouses
The retailer could bring its distribution technology to the grocery chain

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-26/amazon-robots-poised-to-revamp-how-whole-foods-runs-warehouses

[littleman]

That's interesting, so the face may look very much the same, but the back end could get very automated and Amazon will squeeze more profit.

[Mackin USA]

and speaking of COSTCO...

[Travoli]

I'm getting e-mails from Kroger about their new delivery service.

[rcjordan]

>Kroger

I read the other day that Kroger owns Harris-Teeter.   Didn't know that.

I mentioned in another thread that Publix is delivering in Charleston, SC.

[DrCool]

>>Publix is delivering in Charleston, SC

Shipt does Publix deliveries here. They will do Costco as well. I believe you pay about a 5% premium on the price of the groceries to get them delivered and there is a monthly fee.

It wouldn't shock me at all if more and more grocery stores start offering some sort of delivery service. If they were smart they would do something similar to Amazon's Subscribe and Save where you sign up and have an automatic monthly delivery that you receive with the option to add on other items as needed. So every month you will get your pasta, canned fruit, taco shells, boxes of cereal, etc. automatically delivered on the 1st of the month.

To take it a step further they could do some sort of grocery/pre-prepared meal hybrid. So similar to Blue Apron they bring groceries along with some meal kits.

[rcjordan]

>there is a monthly fee

I'm not sure about the 5% premium in Charleston but you could do an annual fee, too.  The pickers & drivers work sort of like Uber.

[rcjordan]

The software routing 260,000 grocery deliveries a week
http://ocadotechnology.com/blog/ocado-internet-of-vans/

Scaling up the traveling salesman algo.

[rcjordan]

RE: Whole Foods

At the end of August, Amazon quietly expanded the cities included in the alcohol delivery service through Prime Now

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/17/getting-alcohol-delivery-on-amazon--will-whole-foods-help.html