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Comment by smaili | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting to understand how Whole Foods could not keep their customers for their premium products, yet Apple (for the most part) has continued to still keep their customers all the while charging above average cost.

Could possibly be an indicator that people are inherently willing to spend more on electronics than food?

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Back 15 years or so ago, I went to whole foods and purchased outrageously expensive tomatoes and other products because they not only were in theory grown without a bunch of potentially harmful chemicals but they _TASTE_ better. Buying tomato's, even in season, at the local grocery store usually results in tasteless, pulpy (or rocky) products. Same for pretty much every other fruit/vegetable. They also carried "strange" things like rice milk, and premium cheeses, and a bunch of other things frequently not found in the normal supermarket chains.

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.

Worst part is they bought every small organic market in each market they entered and closed them before opening a large super market, for example, the The Granary in Monterey, CA.

The local coop has become the new Whole Foods in my town, as it provides quality produce (for when I'm in the mood) and niche items that Whole Foods was famous for popularizing at acceptable prices. It's also helpful to support a local member-managed organization, even if I am not a member. Between normal grocery stores, a small local store such as a coop, and stores with unique store brand items such as Trader Joe's my needs are generally covered.

Canned tomatoes are almost always better than fresh at a grocery store anyway. Fresh tomatoes need to be picked too early so they're firm when being transported. With canned they can pick at ideal ripeness and can straight away.

> It would be interesting to understand how Whole Foods could not keep their customers for their premium products,

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.

How do you fraudulently overcharge in a grocery? They see the price on the shelf, and I'm guessing it wasn't something as simple as it scanning in as a higher price. If they don't like the price they can not buy it.

Most people don't check the price on the shelf with the price they actually pay, unless they're only buying one or two items.

> How do you fraudulently overcharge in a grocery?

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.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/25/news/companies/whole-foods-o...

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.

When the Whole Foods opened near me, for the first year, about half the time that I would shop there I had an item where the price they charged at the checkout was higher than the price on the shelf. No "free item if overcharged" deal like you see at many shops either. It was a bit of a pain to have to watch out for over charging, but it the problem went away eventually.

I like all the weird random stuff I've never seen before at Whole Foods - but at the same time, there is an amazing co-op in my town that has far better produce, the majority of the same dry items and much better prices. So, I go to the co-op instead.

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.

Apple has pricing power because their products are differentiated and they have competitive advantages that give it a wide moat, making it difficult to compete with.

Whole Foods has tons of competition that have got into organic food.

Its easier to budget a few extra hundred every few years vs a few extra hundred every month.

Google's Pixel is anecdotally comparable and costs roughly the same as iPhones. If the Pixel's costs stack up similarly to the iPhone, Google could soon put downward pressure on smartphone prices.

Perhaps, but there is still a type of lockin that doesn't exist with groceries. Both Android and iOS have built up their ecosystems such that there are substantial switching costs. Lots of other organic stores now sell 100% identical items that Whole Foods has.

- It's obvious when you use a nice cell phone, so it's a status symbol. Eating organic, expensive food can be as well, but it's far less obvious what your lunch or dinner is made of to an onlooker.

- 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.

My solution is to buy pricey stuff when there is a substantial difference in terms of flavor between the run of the mill stuff and what you can find from a specialty product. So no to chicken breasts, but yes to steaks... and no to celery, but yes to tomatoes. I'd honestly rather go to an asian market for most of my produce, though. More inexpensive, way more variety, and fresher overall, at least in my experience.

But when would you show your phone to other people?

If I want a status symbol I'd probably buy a $50k Rolex watch.

People have their phones out all the time, and Rolexes can be easily faked.

Also, I'm talking middle class status symbol. Not rich person status symbol.

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