It seems like virtually every newspaper and media outlet carried stories at the end of August breathlessly touting price cuts at Whole Foods now that Amazon has taken over the high-priced chain.
One would think with such headlines that everything in the store was now at bargain basement prices. Nothing could be further from the truth. All these reporters were buying what Amazon was selling in their press release without checking the true extent of the price cuts and how that would affect the average shopper.
MrConsumer made a visit to the medium size Whole Foods in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood two days before the price drop and again twice last week afterwards. Rather than finding large signs all over the store proclaiming that thousands of items had been cut in price, it appeared that very little had changed.
*MOUSE PRINT:
On his third store visit, the day after the price drops, MrConsumer went up and down every aisle, electronic clicker in hand, trying to count every item bearing the Whole Foods + Amazon orange logo signaling a new lower price. The final count: only 49 items were cut in price. Put another way, Amazon did not reduce the price of 99.5% of the estimated 10,000 items carried by the average Whole Foods store. A Whole Foods spokesperson confirmed the number of items carried, but refused to discuss the list of affected products or even just the number of items reduced.
Some of these products were accounted for multiple times in the overall tally, like the seven flavors of one brand of tomato sauce, the four varieties of one brand of eggs, and the over half a dozen sizes of bottled water. Together, those three products alone accounted for nearly 40 percent of all the price reductions.
Now, were there legitimate and sizable price reductions? Absolutely. Atlantic salmon went from $12.99 a pound to $9.99, and fancy schmancy ground beef in a cryovac package dropped from $8.99 to $6.99 a pound. Are these now bargains? Not exactly. Are more price reductions coming? They say so.
Amazon and Whole Foods were masterful at getting the media to promote an almost nonexistent price drop, and in turn at helping them counteract the supermarket’s high-price image. The reality is that the average shopper will barely notice any savings in their weekly grocery bill at least in the short-run.
