Quote:
Originally Posted by BryanBusby
Branding is good, even if its 100% bullshit.
Amazon doesn't particularly care too much about the actual Whole Foods stores themselves as much as they did about the distribution chain they had.
They want to control the entire delivery process and shut Walmart out of the grocery business by making groceries comparable in price while having fast delivery vs slogging through a store filled with Jethro's.
Walmart is ****ed long term in this game for 2 reasons.
First, they have an ungodly amount of physical stores where the upkeep is going to be a crusher. Maintenance, theft, asset protection, workers salaries/benefits, utilities, real estate costs, remodeling costs etc really adds up fast with how many stores they operate.
They also had the benefit of being by far the #1 grocer and they absolutely used this to their advantage. They got sweetheart deals from food distributors for being the biggest bulk buyer and they were able to **** farmers in the ass by completely dictating whatever they felt like paying for a load.
With a crowded market, food sources have more options at hand and can tell Walmart to eat a sack of cocks with better flexibility.
Basically rising store upkeep costs and slimming profit margins on food is hurting them and they're going to be in for a massive hurt if Trump and China expand the tariff pissing match.
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You make many valid points. I don't know enough about Trader Joe's as I left the business about ten years ago after being in grocery retail management. I left after Wally World had taken it's toll on the biz. A friend of mine who'd left the industry after college said to just wait out the storm
He basically said that specialty retail will never go away and probably eventually make a comeback. It did. It's a lesson that Aldi, Price Chopper/Hen House, HyVee, Target, Winco, HEB, Safeway, Kroger, and a few others either knew or learned. Kmart decided to merge with Sears and go into the real estate market, and mall mart has a bad rep and can't trick people with a 1000 dollars a month in discretionary spending to shop there unless they're in a rural market. I wouldn't be all too surprised if CVS, and Walgreens start doing a better job of expanding their food services