Prime takeover: Amazon Proceeds to Some Promotion blitz inside Whole Foods Shops as Prime Day nears

Amazon setup information booths inside Whole Foods stores, educating customers about the newest Prime member-only bargains. (GeekWire photo / Taylor Soper) Amazon actually wants you to know about how Prime members may save yourself cash at its Whole Foods grocery stores. If you’ve been within a Whole Foods lately, you’ve seen them — the countless blue Prime signs put, well,”everywhere,” as a Whole Foods cashier put it to me within a Seattle store Monday evening. Amazon is going all out with its own messaging within the stores, notifying shoppers who Prime members — who pay $119 per year for an array of Amazon-related benefits — can get exclusive bargains at Whole Foods on various items. Cashiers and other employees are even wearing Prime-branded uniforms and aprons. They ask customers if they are a Prime member at the register. There is also an appointed”Prime Ambassador” at the stores. TODAY AT WHOLE FOODS
A PLAY IN ONE ACT CASHIER: Are you currently a prime member?
ME: Yes.
CASHIER: You need to get into the Whole Foods program for particular sequential discounts.
I thought you would just scan my retina.
NARRATOR: Could it be though? — Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice (@thelegitKAR) July 3, 2018 Prime members can get 10 percent discounts on sale items and other special bargains.  Next week, Amazon will be amping up the savings much more for the firm’s 36-hour Prime Day sales extravaganza that begins July 16. Prime members may earn $10 in Amazon account credit when they spend $10 at Whole Foods from July 11 until July 17. The charge is valid throughout the Prime Day sales event. Amazon Prime Rewards Visa cardmembers will also get 10% back up to $400 at Whole Foods buys, double the normal advantage, from July 14 through 17. Replies for Prime members operate throughout the Whole Foods Market program. Prime members signal in the app using their Amazon accounts, then scan the”Prime Code” within the program when they check out at Whole Foods. They’re also able to provide a phone number connected to the Prime account. Items eligible for further Prime member reductions are designated by particular indications in Whole Foods stores. Clients can also get savings using Whole Foods supermarket delivery, which will be free to get Prime members through Prime Now for orders over $35. The grocery delivery service is available in 19 cities, with much more to be added this year. For Prime Day, Amazon is offering $10 off requests for those that haven’t tried Whole Foods delivery through Prime Now, as well as a $10 charge for use on a future purchase, before July 17. Other 36-hour Prime Day bargains available at 12 p.m. PT on July 16 contain: Organic strawberries, 1 pounds. Container, 2/5 Boneless chicken breasts, animal welfare rated, air-chilled, $3.99/lb., save 40 per cent or even more Icelandic cod fillets, sustainably wild caught, $8.99/lb., save 6/lb. Allegro bagged coffee, sustainably obtained, buy one, get one free MegaFood Vitamins & Supplements, 30% away RXBAR Protein Bars, 1.83 oz., all tastes, 2/$3 Amazon watched a large opportunity to make more value for the Prime app and add new members when it acquired the grocer for about $13.7 billion final year.  There are more than 100 million Prime members worldwide that get benefits like free shipping, cloud storage, streaming media, and much more. Amazon increased the annual price in the U.S. to $119 per year, up from $99, earlier in 2018. Prime members tend to spend more on Amazon goods and services per year ($1,300) compared to non-members ($700), based on Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said it’s the organization’s aim to make it”irresponsible” for customers to not be a member. “We are going to try to do a whole lot to make Prime extremely valuable for when you’re buying Whole Foods,” Jeff Wilke, CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, said at the GeekWire Summit in October. The reductions are an effort by Amazon to provide shoppers a rewards program provided by rivals like Kroger’s and Safeway, but one which is differentiated given that the Prime app necessitates membership charges and is far more powerful. CNBC reported that 75% of Whole Foods customers are members, however, less than 20 percent of Prime members shop at Whole Foods. Amazon cut costs on many things at Whole Foods upon finishing the purchase this past year, as part of its broader push into physiological retail stores. However, studies showed that some costs later climbed. Some customers remarked that despite all the branding, they are not really saving much in their purchases. I saved 40 cents on a 110 supermarket charge @WholeFoods for being a Prime member #winning — Russell W. Warnick (@russellwarnick) July 9, 2018 The New Food Economy, a nonprofit investigative food news website, reported last month that the 10 percent reductions are billed back to Whole Foods sellers. Tensions between Whole Foods executives and the provider’s suppliers and employees have risen since the Amazon acquisition. An former Whole Foods seller told The New Food Economy which Amazon is”enjoying with the game” and”is passing savings to customers at the expense of sellers” Amazon was experimenting with grocery-related providers since 2007, when it first began testing its AmazonFresh delivery agency in Seattle. Additionally, it has tested various other applications from Prime Pantry to Subscribe and Save Amazon Go, which will be growing in Seattle.

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