Amazon is expected to buy upscale grocery chain Whole Foods later this year for nearly $14 billion dollars. This deal will accelerate Amazon’s growth in the potentially lucrative, but difficult, ecommerce grocery category. Retailers wanting to capture the lucrative grocery market have historically run in to trouble: shoppers wanting to choose items that look the best to them and difficult delivery logistics. With this acquisition, Amazon is closer than ever to overcoming these challenges.
Before buying Whole Foods, analysts agreed that Amazon was slated to become a top 10 grocery within the next couple of years with its existing portfolio of online grocery shopping options: Amazon Now, Amazon Pantry and Amazon Fresh. Acquiring Whole Foods gives the ecommerce giant access to hundreds of brick-and-mortar locations: potential pick-up/delivery centers for online grocery shoppers and opportunities to experiment with new technology like Amazon Go for in-store shoppers.
Consumer brands beware–grocery isn’t the only category that Amazon is targeting. With the recent announcement of Amazon Wardrobe, clothing retailers and brands also need to take a closer look at their Amazon strategies and plan for the future. We recommend making sure your products are listed on Amazon as a vendor to combat third party re-sellers, optimizing Amazon product pages with compelling A+ content, and creating Amazon Marketing Services campaigns.
We’ve been writing about ecommerce, grocery, and Amazon for awhile now. Check out our previous blog posts below for ecommerce grocery best practices and tips on how to optimize grocery content on Amazon.
Ecommerce, Amazon, and Grocery Brands:
Thanksgiving Online Grocery Shopping: An Opportunity for Brands
