Amazon Said to Mull Whole Foods Bid Before Jana Stepped In
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Amazon is going to own the entire market if something isn't done.
Can you explain how exactly?
EDIT: Walmart is also more convenient than most other businesses because you can get everything in one place
There were many advantages of Walmart at the time. Perception of lower prices, much more convenient hours (many local shops closed at 5-6), better product selection with frequently updated stock, etc...
I'm wondering if there aren't quite a few on HN that don't even know what a pre-Walmart world was like, especially in smaller cities/towns.
I don't have a Walmart near me, I live in city where there isn't one, I actually don't know much about the Walmart experience. So its not really such an obvious question is it?
>"I'm wondering if there aren't quite a few on HN that don't even know what a pre-Walmart world was like, especially in smaller cities/towns."
Not only am I old enough to remember pre-Walmart but I'm also old enough to remember Pre-Internet.
Your comments are both presumptuous and arrogant.
You were lucky if they had your size in everything you wanted to buy. Meant going to several different stores.
I was around for the opening of a new store in the late '60s early '70s: K-Mart. It has everything. So Meijer's had to compete and lower prices.
This apparel example happened across all items Walmart stocked. The local store had to compete on price.
We pay less now In absolute $$ on clothing than we did 30 years ago.
Carter's for children and infants is actually cheaper in the Carter's store than the Carter's sold at Walmart.
Competition lowers prices and makes stores and manufactures find new ways to make things cheaper. All to the benefit of consumers.
I look at my phone Bill to realize how ridiculous the pricing is. Pay $100 for two phones. Twenty five years ago a $40 phone bill would call for a family meeting.
So as Walmart and others helped bring down lower prices other areas suck up the savings
In the clothing industry this was mostly achieved by shipping manufacturing to Asia or Central America, and paying slave wages. It hasn't been great for the environment either.
There's no need to take this sort of tone. Asking how is a valid question, and the most generous reading of it assumes that the user wants a real answer, not that they are asking a rhetorical question.
I apologize if I over reacted to the parent. At the same time while I understand some of the negativity towards Walmart there were a lot of positives that came out of it's growth also.
The only confrontational word in that question was "exactly."
It's a fair question because of many people who do remember the pre-Walmart times (their big expansion was in the late 90s-early 2000s). The going narrative at the time was that local businesses were destroyed and this was a tragedy. Additionally, Walmart was one of the first retailers to primarily buy products from Chinese manufacturers instead of sourcing American-made products (after the death of Sam Walton). There were frequent news stories about how a factory closed and all the laid-off workers got jobs at minimum wage at Walmart, selling the very goods they previously made. Several municipalities enacted "no-Walmart" legislation and zoning regulations. Even South Park made an episode about the phenomenon.
Looking back, it might have been unfair to demonize Walmart for what was likely the rational decision to make in a competitive environment. But taken in context for the times, Walmart's growth in the late 1990s/early 2000s was controversial and frequently challenged.
Walmart changed all of that. They were open long hours, so you could go after work. You could return anything, for no reason at all, for a full refund. And prices were low, and consistent nationwide. And you didn't have to drive around to several different stores, maybe even in different towns, to get several different items.
Really they "basically gave you the finger"? Or maybe could it have been that they would to have to absorb that loss out of pocket because of their distributors policies?
>" That "wonderful" "personalized" service from mom-and-pop shops? Mostly myth"
That's a sweeping and completely unsubstantiated generalization. My own experience and history informs me differently. I'm sure I am not alone in that.
But yes thank God for Walmart. I don't know how we functioned as a society before we were entitled to return our purchases months later for no reason at all or when stores closed at 9:00PM.
What loss? All they have to do is put it back on the shelf and sell it again. I'm not talking about perishable groceries here.
>That's a sweeping and completely unsubstantiated generalization. My own experience and history informs me differently. I'm sure I am not alone in that.
I think it's correct. My own experience and history informs me differently. I'm sure I am not alone in that, especially considering all the other comments in this thread.
>or when stores closed at 9:00PM.
This one is just plain wrong. Mom-and-pop stores closed at 5PM; they had "banker's hours".
Why are you sticking up for the mom-and-pop stores so much anyway? Especially with such bogus arguments?
It's certainly relevant that we could go after dinner, when many specialty stores were closed, and the prices were probably better. But even without those benefits, the increased efficiency was a big win – especially for parents where every transition from car to shop to car was a hassle.
Do you not realize that Mom and Pop stores are still around? There not note extinct so I'm not sure why you are talking about that the past tense. There are many in my neighborhood and none of them close at 5:00PM.
Have you ever been to New York City? Your dry cleaner, your pizza place, hardware store, your news stand, your bodega - all are Mom and Pop shops.
>"Why are you sticking up for the mom-and-pop stores so much anyway?"
Because without them we are left with an endless horizon of chain stores and sameness.
Do you realize how central the role of Mom and Pops shops has been in the history of the US and continues to be today? The history of the US which is the history of immigrants is inextricably tied to the existence of the Mom and Pop business[1].
>"Why are you sticking up for the mom-and-pop stores so much anyway?"
You are actually asking why am I sticking up for the small guy? See all of the above.
[1] http://business.time.com/2012/06/15/immigrants-outpacing-the...
Go back in time to the 70s and they did. They only stay open late now because peoples' expectations have changed.
>Have you ever been to New York City?
NYC is not representative of the rest of America in any way. There's not even any Walmarts there. This is about regular America where there are Walmarts, which usually means more rural areas where Walmart is the main retailer.
>The history of the US which is the history of immigrants is inextricably tied to the existence of the Mom and Pop business[1].
Oh please, spare me the romantic and mythical view of the past. That's just like all the conservatives who pine for the "good ol' days" of the 50s and Norman Rockwell paintings, when in real life America was never like that.
The history of immigrants in the US is inextricably tied to labor exploitation and horrendous working conditions, not mom and pop businesses.
>You are actually asking why am I sticking up for the small guy?
In any small town decades ago, the local merchants weren't "small guys", they were some of the richest people in town.
You want to make sweeping blankets like "they all close at 5:00" and then you want to move the goal posts and say the discussion is only about "regular America" whatever that means or "back in the 1970s".
Replace New York with Boston, Austin, Los Angeles or New Orleans etc and the majority of businesses are still Mom and Pop. For some reason you have(incorrectly) equated Mom and Pop to mean rural America. Mom and Pop businesses are not the exclusive domain of small town America. Similarly they are not just a thing of the past as you keep referring to them.
It really appears as you have no interest in engaging in a discussion but rather just want to argue for the sake of arguing. Even your diction "oh please", "Spare me" and "bogus"? What are we in a dive bar?
That's really rich coming from someone who just went through all my recent posts and down-modded them. You're a petty, vindictive little person, and you have some real gall to call me immature.
>You want to make sweeping blankets like "they all close at 5:00"
These are reasons that many people here, including me, have given you for why we liked the effect Walmart has had. You just refuse to accept it. The statement doesn't have to be true for all small businesses nationwide, just enough of them, and in a time before Walmart, which I'm quite sure you don't remember.
People downvote responses in discussions all the time its a standard part of HN. People downvoted my as well. I don't get upset or accuse people of doing it.
Nowhere have I refused to accept that people have valid praise for Walmart at all, nor have I begrudged them that.
What I have disagreed with are wildly exaggerated and patently untrue statements made about Mom and Pop stores such as "they all close at 5:00" and "They don't ever allow returns" and "they ever have any stock."
All of these things are wildly untrue. That's what I have disagreed with.
Every time one these absolute falsehoods is pointed out you move the goal posts, again saying things "The statement doesn't have to be true for all small businesses nationwide, just enough of them"
But again you seem more interested in arguing than engaging in a productive adult discussion.
Is this a distinction that matters to the end-customer, who only knows that they can't return the item?
You're probably not old enough to remember when Sears and A&P were fearsome monopolies ...
Anyhow, as much as I hate WalMart, I will go to a WalMart in preference to almost ANYTHING local in small town America.
I do remember "old school" small town American businesses--yes, they were slow. But they had lots of oddball stock, gave good advice, and, they would give you a slow deadline, but they would move heaven and earth to make sure that they hit it if something went wrong.
About 1990, or so, that all changed in small town America. Inventories went to shit. Advice became laughable. And deadlines became optional.
At that point, why shouldn't I go to WalMart?
The biggest problem was that areas switched from growth to contraction. Once that happened, everybody tightened their belts and customer service along with inventory are the first to go.
Unfortunately, while that may get you through the next quarter, it kills you in the long run.
As a personal example, I've already moved a lot of my purchasing from Amazon to AliExpress. For anything small, fairly cheap, and that I don't need this week, I search AliExpress first. Quality can be uneven and you sometimes have to read between the lines on the reviews, but you can often find items identical to those on Amazon at 1/5-1/10 the price (eg. I just bought 3 sleeved baby bibs on AliExpress for $1.80/ea -- the going price on Amazon seems to be $16).
I couldn't help but wonder if there is such an explosion of babies with more than two arms that there could be a competitive market in bibs with three sleeves!
But I don't like how Amazon because of how they treat their workers. Maybe the engineering positions are awesome, but warehouse workers and deliverers seem to be worse off than a Wal-Mart employee 10 years ago
I've read only some teams are awesome while the rest are in an infinite loop waiting for more stock to vest.
And realistically, I may not have gotten back to the project in 3 weeks even if the parts were already on hand.
Could possibly be an indicator that people are inherently willing to spend more on electronics than food?
Most of WFs products, including premium products, are third-party non-exclusive commodities that any retailer can choose to carry if they want; also, WF was prosecuted (more than once, IIRC) for systematically fraudulently overcharging customers, which probably isn't a great way to win customer loyalty or fight the "whole paycheck" image.
Whole Foods and Apple are basically nothing alike.
Systematically mislabeling prepackaged, WF-store-produced products to indicate greater net weight than is actually provided was, IIRC, the main method.
Having false scales for bulk goods would also be a possibility, though I don't think WF was ever accused of that.
In short: the packaging might say there was say 1lb of chicken tenders. In fact, there was only .8 lb.
It looks like this applied to deli/meat items? So not pre-packaged foods on the shelf, but the store-packaged items like meat and deli trays.
- A nice cell phone is $1,000 extra every 2-3 years. Eating only at Whole Foods is $500-$1000 extra PER MONTH for a household.
- Whole Foods has more competition now, Apple not so much. Apply owns much more of the supply chain compared to Whole Foods.
- Owning Apple products is almost a necessity in certain jobs for technological or status reasons. What you eat is never that much of a concern.
- The status boost of having a fancy phone is a good value, compared to, for instance, a fancy car. The status boost of eating fancy food is much more questionable, as are the health benefits.
If I want a status symbol I'd probably buy a $50k Rolex watch.
Also, I'm talking middle class status symbol. Not rich person status symbol.
So the prices were insane (resulting in stories about $35 bags of cherries and other nonsense) but the product quality generally matched.
Fast forward a few years, and as whole foods grew they stopped being able to get the small batch products picked at peak ripeness or produced at artisan quantities. Instead they contracted out to giant organic agribusiness and the quality fell, while at the same time the traditional supermarket started carrying some of these premium products. Today, probably 90% of the smaller whole foods products are available in similar forms at the local supermarket. Sure I guess whole food still has artisan quantity products, but finding them can be difficult in their supermarket sized stores.
So, whole foods is really just a victim of their own success. In my case, to many tasteless vegetables later, I simply stopped making the effort to drive to their stores.
Whole Foods has tons of competition that have got into organic food.
This could be hypothetically be their biggest issue - competition in more urban areas, where most of their customers are. After all, people who want local, sustainable products are also more likely to want to support a local business.