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Comment by jamestimmins | Hacker News Reader

As the article hints, this jump is likely driven in part by the millions of dollars of free advertising Whole Foods received from the news, and not simply because there were price cuts.

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If you live in a town with a Whole Foods, you already know it's there. And nothing physically changed to the stores overnight.

Announcing a price cut seems way more likely to draw in comparison shoppers to see what cuts were made, and if they compare to people's current regular supermarkets.

So along that line of thinking, everyone knows the McDonalds is there so there's no reason for McDonalds to ever pay for advertising.

Most of that is advertising deals and/or new products.

Those deals and products are part of the marketing/advertising, not independent from it.

The politeness is refreshing compared to slashdot

You're comparing apples and oranges.

Say Coca-Cola buys McDonald's Corporation and it makes a splash in the business community and restaurant blogs. Then the new joint company announces that all soft drinks are $0.10 from now on.

Traffic spikes 25%. Which of those two events was the cause?

That is a false comparison because if you ask people the reason why they don't buy McDonald's more frequently very few of them will cite the cost of soft drinks. Many people will cite the overall cost of Whole Foods as a reason they don't shop there more frequently. Amazon's changes directly addressed the biggest complaint about Whole Foods.

A better analogy might be if Coca-Cola found a way to magically drop the calorie total of McDonald's food without altering the taste.

Yes, that is much better. Thanks.

Yes. "Whole Paycheck" is a popular phrase. Amazon, I would guess, would like to change that.

Price is the #1 reason I do not choose to shop at Whole Foods. If they fixed price, I'd be in there a lot more - the food is generally better, but not so much better to justify the price increase (for me).

How close are they to having fixed price, for you, after the recent price cuts?

I haven't been yet, because my habits right now exist around not going to whole foods. They've achieved a willingness for me to try them out again though - probably the next time the Fred Meyer near me is out of english muffins (3rd time in 3 weeks yesterday!) I'll try it out.

Having seen some of the price cuts online it doesn't seem like a whole lot, but if the staples like eggs and veggies/fruit are actually coming down ($3 peaches, $5 eggplants from what I remember) and I can get a week's worth of not-pasta food for under $150 I'd probably switch over.

Shouldnt all fresh food be of variable market price?

Seems quite evironmentally unfriendly to subside out of season food solely to appease picky customers.

Eating local in-season food should be promoted by market mechanisms.

Normally shops have discounts and sales on in-season fruit. The "regular price" is the "out of season" high price all year round.

Yes it should, but one of the major features/downsides of supermarkets is it doesn't allow you to think about whats in season vs not. Corn can be a dollar an ear even in October when harvesting happens. Tomatoes are the same all year round (tasteless/watery/tart), as are almost all greens. Berries in the winter come from Chile.

If a supermarket had an "in season" section I would shop there almost exclusively, if it meant I was going to to get a good deal and better produce. Even with farmers markets you're not guaranteed to get in season local produce.

> Eating local in-season food should be promoted by market mechanisms.

Given that the market is at work, that is obviously not the result. Transport costs do not apparently override convenience, simpler logistics, and economies of scale.

By the way, English muffins are very, very easy to make.

You may or may not know this, but that mindset is the exact reason the produce in major chains are so crappy in taste. It's not cheap to produce food, and if you want something that actually taste good it's more expensive.

People rave about cheap meat, eggs, and diary products. But anyone that has actually been involved in producing it, knows that the price you see today is not sustainable unless you only optimize for quantity, and the expense of everything else.

Speaking for me... a lot. Things like avocados went from being the most expensive in town, to th least, and that's one example of many.

FYI many (possibly all) of the Whole Foods here in Seattle did in fact change overnight: they added higher shelves, rearranged the layouts & product placements etc. All of this happened within the final day of the switch from what I can tell.

Possibly, but let me share a story: in the days after the discounts were announced the Whole Foods brand organic butter was completely sold out at my local store, much to my annoyance. That never happened before the 50 cent discount.

Some produce deals don't have much volume flexibility.

A typical deal might look like:

Buy 1k units for $0.20 each with an option to buy 200 additional units for $0.40 each.

If sales are above 1200 units, the shop likley can't get hold of any at any price.

So it appears masses of shoppers went into Wholefoods to take advantage of price cuts, but couldn't because those items had sold out. But since they were there anyway....

Great way to draw in the crowds without actually losing all that much from the price cuts.

Well of course, that goes without saying. The best product in the world won't sell if no one knows about it.

Not sure why I'm being downvoted. A price cut might net you more sales from existing customers, but you don't get a 25% jump in foot traffic without people being told about the price cuts (whether thru paid advertising or word of mouth/earned media)

You're being down voted for being snarky about someone's post without adding any value and then just re-treading the OP's point. If it goes without saying, there's not point just saying it again, and again even if it's correct.

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