When Amazon bought the video-streaming site Twitch Interactive for about $1 billion in 2014, the deal prompted concerns that the startup would drastically change.
Jefferies' Brian Fitzgerald provides some more in-depth analysis of the strategy behind the deal: We believe the WFM (Hold) acquisition would give a boost to AMZN's efforts with Fresh which was launched 10 years ago and operates in 20 metro areas in the USA and overseas.
One change coming after the Whole Foods deal closes, says Citigroup, will involve private label offerings.
For Whole Foods, it's an opportunity to rebuild its own reach at a time when the supermarket's share prices have been gradually declining following the announcement that it was closing nine stores earlier this year.
That could be bad news for Costco, whose shares slid as much as 3% in trading Monday. Amazon and Whole Foods have the combined power to engage in low cost pricing - something mom and pop shops certainly can't do. Those worries proved to be overblown, although Amazon has begun to add products to the site. Kantar Worldpanel estimates that online grocery sale penetration is just 4.4% worldwide (compared to ~9% for total eCommerce). With the WFM acquisition, it jump-starts the attack on one of the least penetrated categories - groceries.
A representative for Whole Foods confirmed that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was at the meeting. Amazon clearly wants to do to supermarkets what it did to bookstores. How that experiment has panned out so far we don't know for sure. But Parikh added that activist investors have a stake in Whole Foods.
'I don't care': Aussie coach tetchy ahead of Confed opener
With an average age of 24 years and four months, Germany have the most youthful squad of the eight Confederations Cup teams. At the end of the match Germany on the counter was much closer to the fourth goal than Australia to a sensational draw.
Mr Ladd also reflected on the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service saying Amazon had confirmed that the Fresh site would also be launching in Australia.
Photo by David Ryder / Stringer / Getty Images.
How does Walmart, the world's largest retailer, see its future in light of Amazon's moves?
The Whole Foods chief said Amazon's technology will help the grocer transform from "class dunce" into "valedictorian". "The entire fulfillment process is more complex and time consuming from the moment a "grocery" shipment arrives" at a fulfillment center until it is shipped, which includes refrigeration and attention to factors such as "expiration dates, smell, and color, among others", points out a Cowen & Co. report.
We're speculating a lot about what the Amazon-Whole Foods deal will mean in the short and long term. That's business that comes right out of traditional grocery retailers. Whole Foods also declined to comment.
Whole Foods already has a separate store, called 365, which offers private-label goods and lower prices than its typical formats. The space has gotten intensely competitive for Wal-Mart, and with Amazon's focus on technology to provide convenience to consumers, Wal-Mart will need to stay on its toes to maintain its market share.
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