Amazon is lowering prices on a few items at its newly acquired Whole Food’s stores, but that doesn’t mean the grocery retailer will become the best bargain in town quite yet or that other companies will feel pushed to lower their prices too.
“Shoppers shouldn’t expect a price war to break out,” says USA Today. “There’ll be no battle for the cheapest avocado. Traditional supermarkets are already dealing intense price-driven competition from all directions, including big-box Walmart, which is the largest grocer in the U.S, and a range of discounters and specialty stores.”
Instead, rival grocers might double-down on niche items and tap into the sustainable food market that Whole Food’s helped pioneer — in essence trying to be more Whole Foods than Whole Foods.
“What’s you’re going to see now is grocery chains start to commit more locally,” said Lauren Beitelspacher, an assistant professor of marketing at Babson College. “They’re partnering with local farms and go back to being what Whole Foods was originally.” Beitelspacher and others watching the merger closer worry that price cuts could ultimately lower food quality at Whole Foods, but others say the company has too much riding on its sustainable image to undermine its values.
The list of items that will be discounted includes “Whole Trade bananas; organic large brown eggs, avocados, baby kale, baby lettuce and Gala and Fuji apples; ‘animal-welfare-rated’ 85% lean ground beef; organic “responsibly-farmed” salmon and tilapia; creamy and crunchy almond butter; organic rotisserie chicken and house-brand organic butter,” according to USA Today.
As for how Amazon’s technology will impact the grocery shopping experience, Kenneth Sanford, adjunct professor at Boston College, told CNBC, predicts that Whole Foods will be able to predict which items you’re running low on based on the last time you bought them and automatically send replacements to your Amazon cabinet — individualized cubbies for customers.