Dive Brief:
- Amazon Prime members who also shop at Whole Foods stores are now getting targeted two-hour delivery suggestions from the natural grocer when they visit Amazon.com, Bloomberg reported. The personalized promotion began rolling out in August.
- The promotion, which features a digital storefront and relies on data mined from users' Prime accounts in Whole Foods stores, is now running in almost 30 cities including Los Angeles, Houston and Detroit, a spokesperson confirmed. Whole Foods customers had previously only been able to search delivery offerings through the Prime Now app, which counts 1.8 million average monthly users, according to data cited by Bloomberg, compared to the 200 million unique monthly viewers to Amazon.com.
- Amazon is offering discounts on perishables in addition to showing shoppers' previous Whole Foods purchases on its website. Customers can also use a filter to limit their search to products available at their local Whole Foods if they prefer grocery pickup instead.
Dive Insight:
Aside from integrating Prime memberships into the Whole Foods shopping experience and cutting prices incrementally, Amazon hasn’t dramatically altered Whole Foods. The latest move indicates that Amazon has defined a clearer plan to leverage the grocer — and its customer data — to boost its online grocery business and make better use of the Prime-Whole Foods customer relationship.
By leveraging Prime members' purchase history at Whole Foods on Amazon.com, the e-tailing giant shows once again how important it sees its core business in lifting the once-struggling natural grocer. It also indicates Amazon sees e-commerce as a primary growth driver for Whole Foods.
Amazon initially launched grocery delivery at Whole Foods in February of 2018 in four cities and has been expanding it gradually, with close to 100 cities now offering the service. Prime members can get free two-hour delivery from the grocer for orders over $35 and free one-hour pickup from participating stores on orders over the same value.
Amazon has promoted lower prices at Whole Foods, but research has shown only a modest decline in average prices while numerous Prime members say they're not seeing the savings they'd like. Research also shows Amazon is having a hard time converting Prime members into regular Whole Foods shoppers.
