Amazon Prime members will get an additional discount on hundreds of Whole Foods products, the chain it acquired in June 2017. Specialists claim there is a clear strategy behind these discounts.
Win-win for Prime and Whole Foods
Amazon currently has more than 100 million Prime subscribers, who will now get an additional 10 % discount on hundreds of Whole Foods products. The only thing they have to do, is to download the Whole Foods app, connect it to their Prime membership and activate it in the store. The Florida stores will get the scoop, but the discount will be rolled out to the entire United States later this summer.
It is not the first time that Amazon is trying to lure its Prime subscriber to Whole Foods: earlier this year, it expanded its Prime Now service (free shipment within two hours) to Whole Food food purchases in a dozen cities. Amazon Prime Visa Card owners also get a 5 % cashback on all of their Whole Food buys. Amazon also twice lowered Whole Foods’ prices, something that also benefits non-Amazon Prime members.
Specialists see a clear “double” strategy: get as many Whole Foods customers to apply for an Amazon Prime subscription and to get as many Prime members to Whole Foods. “Maybe grocery is to Amazon in the next decade what books was in the ’90s,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush.
Amazon recently increased Prime’s subscription fee from 99 to 119 dollars. “We will continue to increase Prime’s value”, CFO Brian Olsavsky explained the price increase.
