Amazon to Cut Prices at Whole Foods Starting Monday

Whole Foods is attempting to shed the image of an overpriced grocery store with their new Amazon deal. In the near future, the organic marketplace will be lowering their prices on much of their food. For those that subscribe to Amazon Prime, they’ll be seeing even further discounts and other benefits when shopping at a local store.

Back in June, Amazon purchased Whole Foods in a deal worth $13.7 billion. That deal will be closing on Monday, August 28th, and there will already be a significant impact. Many organic food items, such as produce, salmon, butter, and various 365 Everyday Value store-branded items will be knocked down in price. Many of their branded products will also be sold on the Amazon website.

Over time, Amazon Prime will be offering a customer rewards program for Whole Foods shoppers. There will be discounts and “other in-store benefits,” which continue to make the subscription service even more valuable. At the moment, Amazon Prime members enjoy special discounts already with Prime Pantry. This offers various food items, cosmetics, and apparel at competitive prices.

"It's been our mission for 39 years at Whole Foods Market to bring the highest quality food to our customers," said John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, in a press release. "By working together with Amazon and integrating in several key areas, we can lower prices and double down on that mission and reach more people with Whole Foods Market's high-quality, natural and organic food.

Amazon plans to make Whole Foods items more available around the world and will implement them into sections like AmazonFresh, Prime Pantry, and Prime Now. To make the transition simple, the company and all its stores will continue working under the Whole Foods name and the headquarters will remain in Austin, Texas. More prices will be coming down as the companies merge and Amazon’s resources become available.

Select Whole Foods stores will also contain Amazon Lockers, meaning shoppers will be able to pick up or drop off items they’re ordering or returning to Amazon.com. There’s also the possibility of Whole Foods stores morphing into the Amazon Go concept. This would provide checkout-free shopping, giving people the ability to quickly want into a store, grab some items, and walk out in no time while transactions are done through the phone automatically.

Amazon’s improved grocery shopping on their website over time with local delivery in major urban areas that takes mere hours and implementing Prime Pantry, The world’s largest online megastore is also continuing to increase the value of their subscription service, adding deals at Whole Foods to a large list of streaming media, other discounts on the website, and free two-day shipping. Membership prices for Amazon Prime are either $99 annually or $10.99 per month.