Sometimes, the best defense is offense.
Everything Amazon does is to make the Flywheel spin faster.
By buying Whole Foods, Amazon nominally gets:
- 431 stores in prime retail space in affluent areas, nationwide, for just ~ $32 million per store
- Whole Food’s relationship with local and nationwide suppliers of organic, fresh produce
- Brand equity of Whole Foods with middle, upper-middle, and upper class consumers
- Nationwide distribution, fulfillment center network optimized for groceries
- Staff experienced in running high end groceries
- … and other valuables in the balance sheet
But the above gets you to spin the Amazon Flywheel even faster:
- Faster Delivery: Near-instant expansion of Amazon Fresh and Prime Now - if Amazon chooses so. They can leverage the local FC network that Whole Foods already has.
- Better Selection: Whole Foods’ unique and exclusive supplier and vendor network, now available on iOS and Android
- Lower Prices: Apply Amazon’s technology investments in checkout experience (e.g. Amazon Go) onto lagging brick and mortar experiences.
This works because of the following factors:
- The significant demographic overlap between Whole Foods shoppers and Amazon Prime members
- Amazon’s desire to build businesses on top of on-demand, 1 day delivery supply chain (Amazon Fresh, Amazon Prime)
- Amazon’s efforts in applying technology innovations to improve on and offline shopping experiences, and bettering grocery margins
- Offensive and defensive move against local and regional grocery delivery aggregators as well as traditional brick and mortar players trying to go online