<story><title>Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AndrewDucker</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;dkberman&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;875701677504024576&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;dkberman&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;875701677504024576&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Amazon did not just buy Whole Foods grocery stores. It bought 431 upper-income, prime-location distribution nodes for everything it does.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>steego</author><text>Meh.&lt;p&gt;This deal is about expansion, not about tapping into 431 measly location.  Amazon knows they can set up satellite warehouses a lot faster and cheaper than they can create a store.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s be clear.  Whole Foods is not a commodity food supplier.  They enjoy high margins because they have cultivated quality and consciousness into their products.  They did to food what Apple did to computers.  They added the right mix of intangibles with a sense of mission and purpose that people can many buy into.  Add on top of that, and Whole Foods adds an expertise procuring a catalog of high-end suppliers for both packages and fresh foods and the safe handling of those foods.&lt;p&gt;This deal should significantly improve Amazon&amp;#x27;s food delivery offerings.  As a food snob and target demographic, I can say this will significantly improve my chances of using Amazon&amp;#x27;s food delivery service.  I&amp;#x27;ve used it in the past, but wasn&amp;#x27;t satisfied because I was disappointed with the quality and selection.  It wasn&amp;#x27;t bad, it just wasn&amp;#x27;t great.&lt;p&gt;I suspect most people will not be willing to buy the high-end products, but that&amp;#x27;s not the point.  The point is the high-end&amp;#x2F;high-margin products will be available so shoppers won&amp;#x27;t have to go out and do supplementary shopping to get the &amp;quot;good stuff&amp;quot;.  If online grocery shopping is going to become viable, they need to make sure they reduce the need for supplementary shopping as much as possible.  Having a leg and data from a real grocery store will help them figure out what they need to do to improve.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AndrewDucker</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;dkberman&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;875701677504024576&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;dkberman&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;875701677504024576&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Amazon did not just buy Whole Foods grocery stores. It bought 431 upper-income, prime-location distribution nodes for everything it does.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maxerickson</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that is right, Whole Foods stores are already full of...food. They don&amp;#x27;t have room for hundreds of additional products, never mind tens of thousands.</text></comment>