This is exactly my experience! I’m sure the choice of what goes on the shelves is algorithmically optimised to within an inch of its life, but I’m not convinced that the target function they were...
This is exactly my experience! I’m sure the choice of what goes on the shelves is algorithmically optimised to within an inch of its life, but I’m not convinced that the target function they were using was optimised all that well for the psychology of bricks and mortar retail…
Same experience with it getting quickly run down too - again, at a guess, that’s what you end up with when you’re used to staffing non-customer-facing warehouses rather than spaces where people are judging the brand on how neat and inviting it seems.
Amazon Fresh stores, to me, were a really weird place to go. It was the only grocery store owned by a big corporation that didn’t care about hiding the fact that they were run by soulless number...
Amazon Fresh stores, to me, were a really weird place to go. It was the only grocery store owned by a big corporation that didn’t care about hiding the fact that they were run by soulless number crunchers. The last time I went out there the dozen or so people I saw in the aisle there were maybe two or three customers. The rest were people either stocking the shelves or picking for orders.
I don’t have good memories of Whole Foods Market, and I don’t even remember if I’d been in one before Amazon bought it, but it seems pretty clear to me that the management is basically turning them into Amazon fulfillment centers just like their Amazon Fresh stores were. So this move seems less of a failure of a concept and more of a universalization of business operations.
I haven’t been in an Amazon Fresh store but I recently shopped at a Whole Foods Market. I noticed a number of things that I found interesting: About 1/4 of the shoppers were apparently workers...
I haven’t been in an Amazon Fresh store but I recently shopped at a Whole Foods Market. I noticed a number of things that I found interesting:
About 1/4 of the shoppers were apparently workers filling online orders. You could tell because they already had grocery bags in the carts while they were shopping
A very high percentage of the floor space was taken up for expensive high-profit items. Like salad bars, full service deli, a hot soup bar. There were four different meat counters. One was seafood only. In some ways it seemed more like a restaurant than a grocery store.
The front of the store had a line for Amazon returns and it was extremely fast and efficient.
I know that Whole Foods has always catered to higher income people but this Amazon version was catering to that so strongly that I don’t see how people with typical incomes would go there often.
I mean, you quite often see the sentiment here that people wish there was something akin to a cafeteria for adults. That's exactly what the hot bar at a grocery store is - a way to get cooked food...
A very high percentage of the floor space was taken up for expensive high-profit items. Like salad bars, full service deli, a hot soup bar. There were four different meat counters. One was seafood only. In some ways it seemed more like a restaurant than a grocery store.
I mean, you quite often see the sentiment here that people wish there was something akin to a cafeteria for adults. That's exactly what the hot bar at a grocery store is - a way to get cooked food (compared to restaurant) relatively cheaply, and for which you can choose the mixture of macronutrients.
It's definitely a "working professional" thing, like the so called "slop bowl" restaurants, but I wouldn't necessary characterize it as a rich people thing either.
An actual rich person wouldn't be eating at a whole foods lol.
Sorta lumping in a large group there. I know people who 100% categorize as rich who have and would eat at a whole foods. Very popular in industries with high incomes who care about appearance and...
An actual rich person wouldn't be eating at a whole foods lol.
Sorta lumping in a large group there. I know people who 100% categorize as rich who have and would eat at a whole foods. Very popular in industries with high incomes who care about appearance and health but don't have the time/desire to cook.
The richest person who's eating habits i'm aware of on some personal level would NEVER eat at one, because they'd think it's too pricey and to my understanding doesn't really see a difference between a denny's and a steakhouse.
Personally I think more places should do what whole foods is doing because yeah, there's a TON of food that's moderately easy to prepare if you have the kitchen access and still have a decent markup on it (whole foods is decently cheap if you're sticking to specific sections of the food). People would like to be healthier but it's hard to find places that offer whatever mixture of stuff they're in the mood for/willing to eat, and having such a wide variety makes it easy.
Hell I can name on one hand the number of other places I can get half decent soup at.
That's always been the Whole Foods way; there's a reason why it had the derogatory nickname "Whole Paycheck" as far back as the early 2000's. It's a high-end grocery for high-end incomes.
That's always been the Whole Foods way; there's a reason why it had the derogatory nickname "Whole Paycheck" as far back as the early 2000's. It's a high-end grocery for high-end incomes.
Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores will close, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday, with some locations converted into Whole Foods Market stores. “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” Amazon said. Since the surprise opening of a physical bookstore in 2015, Amazon has tried and failed to establish a foothold under its own brand in categories from groceries to fashion, often with technology flourishes like digital price tags or novel checkout methods.
I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did, . I'm also surprised they never rolled these into the Whole Foods brand given the overlap between the brands. edit: hopelessly wrong about them...
I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did, especially after the grab-and-go tech was exposed to just be relying on people in India to monitor cameras and manually do checkouts. I'm also surprised they never rolled these into the Whole Foods brand given the overlap between the brands.
edit: hopelessly wrong about them relying one external labor for the checkouts
That's not really true. It's a serious case of chinese whispers/telephone. Most transactions at Amazon Go stores is automated. Any case where there's ambiguity, it does fallback to human operators...
relying on people in India to monitor cameras and manually do checkouts
That's not really true. It's a serious case of chinese whispers/telephone. Most transactions at Amazon Go stores is automated. Any case where there's ambiguity, it does fallback to human operators - better to let another set of eyes be on something before you accuse random people of shoplifting. But it's not like it's just Indian wage slaves either. That wouldn't even be practical.
Yeah I saw that, good they aren't just shutting everything down and leaving. Wonder if they could've reworked the small shops to be like express Whole Foods for premade food and snacks
Yeah I saw that, good they aren't just shutting everything down and leaving. Wonder if they could've reworked the small shops to be like express Whole Foods for premade food and snacks
This is exactly my experience! I’m sure the choice of what goes on the shelves is algorithmically optimised to within an inch of its life, but I’m not convinced that the target function they were using was optimised all that well for the psychology of bricks and mortar retail…
Same experience with it getting quickly run down too - again, at a guess, that’s what you end up with when you’re used to staffing non-customer-facing warehouses rather than spaces where people are judging the brand on how neat and inviting it seems.
Amazon Fresh stores, to me, were a really weird place to go. It was the only grocery store owned by a big corporation that didn’t care about hiding the fact that they were run by soulless number crunchers. The last time I went out there the dozen or so people I saw in the aisle there were maybe two or three customers. The rest were people either stocking the shelves or picking for orders.
I don’t have good memories of Whole Foods Market, and I don’t even remember if I’d been in one before Amazon bought it, but it seems pretty clear to me that the management is basically turning them into Amazon fulfillment centers just like their Amazon Fresh stores were. So this move seems less of a failure of a concept and more of a universalization of business operations.
I haven’t been in an Amazon Fresh store but I recently shopped at a Whole Foods Market. I noticed a number of things that I found interesting:
I know that Whole Foods has always catered to higher income people but this Amazon version was catering to that so strongly that I don’t see how people with typical incomes would go there often.
I mean, you quite often see the sentiment here that people wish there was something akin to a cafeteria for adults. That's exactly what the hot bar at a grocery store is - a way to get cooked food (compared to restaurant) relatively cheaply, and for which you can choose the mixture of macronutrients.
It's definitely a "working professional" thing, like the so called "slop bowl" restaurants, but I wouldn't necessary characterize it as a rich people thing either.
An actual rich person wouldn't be eating at a whole foods lol.
Sorta lumping in a large group there. I know people who 100% categorize as rich who have and would eat at a whole foods. Very popular in industries with high incomes who care about appearance and health but don't have the time/desire to cook.
The richest person who's eating habits i'm aware of on some personal level would NEVER eat at one, because they'd think it's too pricey and to my understanding doesn't really see a difference between a denny's and a steakhouse.
Personally I think more places should do what whole foods is doing because yeah, there's a TON of food that's moderately easy to prepare if you have the kitchen access and still have a decent markup on it (whole foods is decently cheap if you're sticking to specific sections of the food). People would like to be healthier but it's hard to find places that offer whatever mixture of stuff they're in the mood for/willing to eat, and having such a wide variety makes it easy.
Hell I can name on one hand the number of other places I can get half decent soup at.
That's always been the Whole Foods way; there's a reason why it had the derogatory nickname "Whole Paycheck" as far back as the early 2000's. It's a high-end grocery for high-end incomes.
From the article:
I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did,
especially after the grab-and-go tech was exposed to just be relying on people in India to monitor cameras and manually do checkouts. I'm also surprised they never rolled these into the Whole Foods brand given the overlap between the brands.edit: hopelessly wrong about them relying one external labor for the checkouts
That's not really true. It's a serious case of chinese whispers/telephone. Most transactions at Amazon Go stores is automated. Any case where there's ambiguity, it does fallback to human operators - better to let another set of eyes be on something before you accuse random people of shoplifting. But it's not like it's just Indian wage slaves either. That wouldn't even be practical.
Ah, mistake on my part then, apologies. That makes more sense haha
It does say they will convert some locations into Whole Foods.
Yeah I saw that, good they aren't just shutting everything down and leaving. Wonder if they could've reworked the small shops to be like express Whole Foods for premade food and snacks
Once I learned there was (by design) some creep watching me the whole time, so I got charged correctly, I stopped going.