- Amazon is changing the way it delivers groceries to your doorstep, as first reported by Bloomberg.
- Currently, customers have to order separately from Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, and Amazon.com.
- The company is planning a single cart that customers can use to check out their orders at one time.
Amazon hasn’t given up on delivering your groceries, even after it’s hit major roadblocks over the past year.
After abandoning new locations, pausing the expansion of new stories, and laying off hundreds of workers at Amazon Fresh, Amazon is poised now for a different kind of grocery rollout, focused on a larger customer base and easier ways to order your groceries, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
One way shopping will get easier for customers is by Amazon becoming more of a one-stop shop for groceries.
Right now, customers who want varied products — say peanut butter from Amazon.com, but bananas from Fresh, and organic rosemary from Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017 — have to place separate orders from each site and wait for separate deliveries to come to their doorstep.
Shopping at Whole Foods means skipping things like Doritos and Diet Coke, as the retailer only stocks products that focus on natural and organic ingredients and bans ingredients like hydrogenated fats, high-fructose corn syrup, and aspartame. Amazon would like to make it possible to order these kinds of snacks and beverages along with a Whole Foods order.
Tony Hoggett, Amazon’s senior vice president of Worldwide Physical Stores & Speciality Fulfillment for Amazon, told Bloomberg the company is now planning ways to create a single cart that customers can use to check out their orders at one time. Hoggett was a longtime executive at grocery chain Tesco before joining Amazon.
There has long been speculation on how Whole Foods might change after Amazon acquired it, and it has changed, particularly in how it implements technology. But for now, don’t expect to see Doritos or Diet Coke, or other products with these banned ingredients in store.
“Those items won’t appear on store shelves, which still adhere to the chain’s pre-Amazon quality and ingredient standards,” per Bloomberg. “Instead the company will see if shoppers are keen on ordering their guilty pleasures online and picking them up at their local Whole Foods.”
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Bloomberg also reported that some customers without Amazon Prime subscriptions will now also be able to order from Fresh without a membership. Starting August 2, non-members in select cities in the US will be able to order Fresh groceries to their doorsteps — a service that was limited to only Prime member holders previously. The company said it will expand its Fresh option across the country by the end of the year.
In a leaked email Insider obtained last fall, Amazon said it was implementing a major reorganization of its physical stores, some changes of which seemed focused on bridging together the Amazon and Whole Foods businesses.
“We have an opportunity to find new ways to collaborate, centralize our capabilities, and leverage the broader Amazon network to serve customers better, together,” the 2022 email said. “We will accomplish this by more intentionally bringing together Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, Amazon Style, and Global Specialty Fulfillment under one global leadership team.”
