Back in February, Amazon expanded its Prime Now two-hours-or-less delivery service to cover multiple Whole Foods markets around the country. Groceries can be ordered for delivery or in-store pick-up, provided the store in question is within the customer’s operating range. Some customers, however, are still not close enough to a Whole Foods market to utilize the service, and some Whole Foods do not currently offer the service. Since Amazon was planning on expanding its Whole Foods operations anyway, they have decided to use the simplest solution: open more Whole Foods.
Whole Foods employees have been visiting retail spaces in the Western United States, specifically Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, with the intent of opening more Whole Foods locations and, by extension, encompassing more customers in Prime Now’s delivery range. Once these new locations have been opened, Amazon will be working to expand Prime Now to all of the over-475 locations around the company, creating a new network of grocery delivery.
When Amazon first purchased Whole Foods in 2017, the company was suffering from slowing store growths and layoffs. Now, only a year later, Whole Foods could very well be the linchpin in Amazon’s next retail conquest.
