Good bye Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go

[Zeke]

Another 16,000 to be laid off — !4,000 before, this last Oct. 30,000 total coming this year in the first 6 months. 2 facts: many locations will become Whole Foods Markets and AI is to blame for most of the non grocery lay-offs.

Source: LA Times (the article is behind a paywall.) Google link here.

Pinterest is laying off 15%.

[Deschodt]

the cycle is near complete.. Amazon kills off little book stores, grows then then kills off hardware stores, then everything stores, then supermarkets, then goes AI and lays off almost everyone... next step drone or driverless deliveries. Total destruction of all little to medium sized businesses, zero employment, one uber rich eye licking Bezos flying in space, no more middle class to buy your crap.

site note: I have family in the grocery business and they talk about supply / quality (everyone supermarket more or less hits the same warehouses for produce,meat, etc, in a set area - but not everyone purchases the same "grade" product). Whole foods used to get pretty decent quality meat and produce (not the best but pretty good). After amazon's acquisition the grade of stuff they buy went down one or 2 notches... Significantly, so people complaining about a drop at wholefoods are not imagining things. I don't recall the exact letter s (A to B or worse) - but you'd be surprised which chains buys what. Sometimes the fancy schmancy little supermarkets are worth the extra cost (not for your corn flakes but for meat and produce).

[Dantilla]

I don't have an Amazon account.
Every purchase from Amazon is a vote to close down the local brick & mortar stores.

[rfuerst911sc]

I doubt Bezos will lose any sleep about the closures/jobs lost . He will probably gain 500 million net worth from the closures . Business as usual .

[faverymi]

[faverymi]

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Deschodt

the cycle is near complete.. Amazon kills off little book stores, grows then then kills off hardware stores, then everything stores, then supermarkets, then goes AI and lays off almost everyone... next step drone or driverless deliveries. Total destruction of all little to medium sized businesses, zero employment, one uber rich eye licking Bezos flying in space, no more middle class to buy your crap.

site note: I have family in the grocery business and they talk about supply / quality (everyone supermarket more or less hits the same warehouses for produce,meat, etc, in a set area - but not everyone purchases the same "grade" product). Whole foods used to get pretty decent quality meat and produce (not the best but pretty good). After amazon's acquisition the grade of stuff they buy went down one or 2 notches... Significantly, so people complaining about a drop at wholefoods are not imagining things. I don't recall the exact letter s (A to B or worse) - but you'd be surprised which chains buys what. Sometimes the fancy schmancy little supermarkets are worth the extra cost (not for your corn flakes but for meat and produce).

Interesting. We used to live ¼ mile from a WF, and did most of our shopping there. I didn't buy enough meat to notice if that changed after the Amazon purchase, but the variety of goods went WAY down. It seemed like every time we went in, something that we had previously regularly purchased was NLA, and lots of other vendors foods have been replaced by WF branded foods. We don't buy a lot of store branded stuff from any store.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I don't have an Amazon account.
Every purchase from Amazon is a vote to close down the local brick & mortar stores.

I know. I HATE Amazon, but we have an account and use it. Yesterday I went to two stores to find stove glass cleaner. One was out of stock and the other never carried it. Went home and ordered on A-zon. I need a UPS for my Starlink router. The nearest place that carries them is 30 miles away. Back to A-zon.
I hate Amazon, but it's so convenient.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I know. I HATE Amazon, but we have an account and use it. Yesterday I went to two stores to find stove glass cleaner. One was out of stock and the other never carried it. Went home and ordered on A-zon. I need a UPS for my Starlink router. The nearest place that carries them is 30 miles away. Back to A-zon.
I hate Amazon, but it's so convenient.

Yep! And there's TONS of stuff on the big-A that may not exist in a brick and motor location within 100 or 500 miles of your location, but chances are you can get it from the big-A in 1-3 days at a discount. It's hard to argue with.

We live in a rural location. The biggest town within 15 miles of us has a pop of <4000. The next biggest is 20 miles away at pop 4500. We've got a couple of pop 20k towns within 55 miles, and Houston and Austin are both 80 miles. We can get pretty much anything you can imagine unless it's just not available regionally, out of Houston, but it's also going to involve 3-5 hours of driving including in city traffic which is usually not worth it for most things.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I know. I HATE Amazon, but we have an account and use it. Yesterday I went to two stores to find stove glass cleaner. One was out of stock and the other never carried it. Went home and ordered on A-zon. I need a UPS for my Starlink router. The nearest place that carries them is 30 miles away. Back to A-zon.
I hate Amazon, but it's so convenient.

We have a big box of long toothpicks that are great for poking stuff like olives, which we enjoy as a snack. Checked Walmart and two different grocery stores, Whole Foods, no dice. $9.99 for a two pack on the big A, two day delivery. Sometimes retail does it to themselves.

One thing for you guys to remember though, we ultimately vote with our wallets. We get our produce from a farmer’s market or a local grocery that sells local produce. Beef and chicken come either from a local farmer directly or a local Omish store. Eggs come from the in-laws or the Omish place. We buy very little crappy chain store produce stuff.

[GH85Carrera]

I use Amazon for products I just can't find locally.

We have to drive 6 miles to get a a employee owned grocery store. They are struggling and the inventory is often less than optimal. I get a lot of my groceries from a local company called Braum's. They have a small "fresh market" for some basic foods.

We use a one man butcher shop a few miles away for great meats. Hamburger packaged in flat packagers to make it easy to store in the freezer. Prime steaks that are wonderful.

We do buy fruit at Sam's. Way cheaper and usually fresher than the grocery stores.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by masraum

We live in a rural location. The biggest town within 15 miles of us has a pop of <4000. The next biggest is 20 miles away at pop 4500. We've got a couple of pop 20k towns within 55 miles, and Houston and Austin are both 80 miles. We can get pretty much anything you can imagine unless it's just not available regionally, out of Houston, but it's also going to involve 3-5 hours of driving including in city traffic which is usually not worth it for most things.

I've seen a lot of nice properties like that, and wonder how they manage the gas budget.

Sounds like a great place for a general store, with a food 'buyers club' or 'co-op' inside.
Dairy, meat, veggies supplied by locals and fresh. Local hangout Saturday morning.
Aunt May down the way might find people really like her pies.
Everything else boxed, frozen, or canned.

The food sign-up for locals includes limited liability and arbitration. No funny business to sink the ship.

Pricing IDK. That has to be penciled first. Maybe 10-20% over store. Or find bulk shippers for common items without spoilage.

[Zeke]

One thing I didn't mention was that we have had an Amazon Fresh here for a couple years. I went there 2wice. I had to go back to affirm my first impression. They are very expensive compared to the Koger/Ralph's model and Kroger is not cheap. We shop regional chains, one called Smart and Final and the other called Stater Bros. The same pack of sliced cheese, for instance, is a buck cheaper and neither one has a card or membership. Same prices for anyone.

Both are large enough to have house brands which are even cheaper. A lot of it is the exact same product with the national name, some is not.

Whole Foods does nothing for me but they do have nice produce and a lot of ready-to-go meals. Those are very expensive as well.

When it came to Amazon Fresh it was not Costco and I would have thought that would have been more the model. I really don't think they thought that through well at all.

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by Deschodt

the cycle is near complete.. Amazon kills off little book stores, grows then then kills off hardware stores, then everything stores, then supermarkets, then goes AI and lays off almost everyone... next step drone or driverless deliveries. Total destruction of all little to medium sized businesses, zero employment, one uber rich eye licking Bezos flying in space, no more middle class to buy your crap.

that's a fact jack.

[vash]

Amazon Gone? too soon?

[Zeke]

That has ben said about Walmart for decades. People probably said that about Sears when they had the big catalog taking business away from the local feed and hardware store on Main St.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by vash

Amazon Gone? too soon?

You read fast, huh?

[vash]

well, it was a scant few sentences.

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by Zeke

That has ben said about Walmart for decades. People probably said that about Sears when they had the big catalog taking business away from the local feed and hardware store on Main St.

well it's been true for decades.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by berettafan

well it's been true for decades.

My point exactly. Or did I have to testify?