The news broke this afternoon that Amazon has bought Whole Foods Market for £10.7bn. The first company to fully maximise selling books online has huge market shares in many other sectors, acquiring Whole Foods is further proof that the online giant shows no signs of slowing down their growth.
Although John Mackey, co-founder and chief executive of the American supermarket that features foods without any artificial preservatives, will stay on in his role, there is no denying that the stores will change. Amazon has bought a company that has stores in every upper income town centre. Will Amazon not only sell, promote and distribute groceries in the UK as it already does in the USA, but also use these stores to distribute everything else you can buy on their website?
Amazon introduced us to the Kindle and Prime delivery and has already changed the way we shop, purchase electronics and everything else random that you can think of and will now be inside stores, presumably using their complex infrastructure to push other deliverers of perishable goods, out of the market. Other companies such as Ocado will definitely be feeling the pressure today, proving that money really does talk; Amazon is already the go-to place for everything we want, is their plan to be the one stop shop for everything we need too?