Why is Amazon buying Whole Foods? The opportunity of online grocery [Podcast]

The dust is still settling after Amazon announced its plans last week to spend almost $14 billion for Whole Foods and its chain of 400+ grocery stores. If the deal goes through, it’ll be the biggest acquisition Amazon has ever made.

For a grocery store chain?

Yep.

“If you’re Amazon, your swings at the bat have to be $10 billion, $20 billion or $50 billion swings … and grocery is that,” says Scot Wingo, executive chairman and co-founder of ChannelAdvisor, our special guest on this week’s episode of the Marketing Land Live podcast. For Amazon, it’s about the opportunity of online grocery shopping, which isn’t as popular in the US as it is in other parts of the world.

The key to understanding the Amazon-Whole Foods roadmap, Wingo says, is to look at Amazon’s past acquisitions — like Zappos, for example. Wingo says Amazon didn’t make wholesale changes in how Zappos operates, and he thinks Amazon will take the same approach with Whole Foods. Don’t expect Whole Foods stores to become fulfillment or returns centers, he says, and they may not even become hubs for Amazon to sell its own devices and hardware like Echo, Dot and others.

That’s the focus of this week’s episode, but we also discuss the upcoming Amazon Prime Day, the recent Amazon Prime Wardrobe news and much more.

This week’s show runs 45 minutes. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service.

We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts.

https://soundcloud.com/marketingland/ml-live-59

Show notes

Amazon buying Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion. What now?

Amazon’s new Prime Wardrobe program is another swing at traditional retailers

95% of online shoppers say a positive return experience drives loyalty [Report]

The Jason & Scot Show (ecommerce podcast)

Thanks for listening! We’ll be back soon with another episode of Marketing Land Live.