Amazon buys Whole Foods:How will this affect Hawai

[macuu222]

I'm hoping in the near future I'll be able to buy "everything" I need at a grocery store with amazon with free shipping to my door and just eliminate the store experience. Not sure how they"re going to handle perishable items like meats fruits ,vegetables etc (if indeed they can). Especially to Hawaii!

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-whole-...SKBN1971QJ

[kalakoa]

I predict no change: Amazon "free shipping" takes weeks, and too many things "cannot ship to Hawaii".

If there was a physical Whole Foods on this island, maybe.

[leilanidude]

Amazon has already been offering guaranteed 2 hour delivery on not only many durable items, but also "Amazon Fresh" which is groceries, in bigger mainland cities. Since they said Whole Foods will continue to operate as is, and none of them are in Hawaii anyway, I don't foresee any change for Hawaii.

[dayna]

There will be no changes for Hawaii. We still will get slow (but FREE) Prime Shipping with no fresh items.

Dayna

www.E-Z-Caps.com

[macuu222]

Whole foods has two stores on Oahu and one in Maui!

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If there was a physical Whole Foods on this island, maybe.
...
Whole foods has two stores on Oahu and one in Maui!

Since Amazon had billions to throw around in their purchase of Whole Foods, who knows, Amazon/Whole Foods may have tens of millions to purchase another natural food store chain, Island Naturals, instantly expanding their presence in Hawaii.

[Eric1600]

Whole Foods is way overpriced. We're all better off just going to our local markets or growing our own.

[Kapoho Joe]

quote:

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Originally posted by Eric1600

Whole Foods is way overpriced. We're all better off just going to our local markets or growing our own.

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I disagree. Ruderman has set his prices either very near to or at whole foods prices.

[Chunkster]

Could Ruderman be overpriced as well? The entire organic/whole foods industry comes across as selling snake oit at times, but they get to charge whatever people are willing to pay. We could argue endlessly over whether or not they are getting their money's worth.

[terracore]

Somebody here said it best, one has to be either really rich or really poor (EBT makes it "free") to shop at Island Naturals. I'm sure the same applies to Whole Foods.

But to weigh in on the OP's question, will this effect Hawaii? Directly, no. Indirectly, the Amazon monopoly potentially just grew significantly. Eventually, fewer choices is bad news for consumers.

The stocks of all the other major grocers fell today after this announcement. Amazon's went up almost $24, which seems like an odd reaction considering Amazon is financing this buyout with debt at the same time the FED is raising interest rates, and Whole Foods hasn't been pulling in much of a profit. Since Amazon's share price at around $1000/share is a significant part of the market index, if they bought a lemon and it drags the stocks down, it could effect Hawaii again indirectly by pulling down values in Hawaiian's 401Ks etc. Amazon's retail operation lost money for 80 consecutive quarters and has only shown a profit a few times. Most people don't know that their retail operation has been subsidized by their other businesses, mostly cloud computing (for example, most of Netflix streams from an amazon cloud).

It will be either boon or bust for amazon, but considering it just added some of the 44 million food stamp recipients to their potential customer base overnight, probably a boon. Amazon Prime Rib, anyone?