This is just one of the articles that I've seen lately that talks about our competition growing more and more, and I can’t say that I’m surprised. It’s no secret that we fell asleep since Amazon took over. We adopted their practices and strayed from the way we did things once, which made us look more like a classic supermarket. Believe me, if our customers wanted that, they would just go to Walmart.
https://www.fooddive.com/news/sprouts-is-holding-its-own-against-whole-foods/532152
You are correct.
I agree that Amazon has nothing to do with how the stores look or feel at this point. Maybe a bunch of blue Prime signage but nothing beyond that. Anybody who has a problem wants to blame Amazon though...it's just as easy as blaming Mackey for everything.
@ Ve5QzhP-gpk
Spot on.
Wait... I thought we were in a race to the bottom??
We fell asleep long before Amazon took over. Mackey and the other leaders forgot what our advantage was. We were the 'Tiffany's' of grocery stores. Tiffany's sells the same jewelry that everyone else does, but they charge more for the customer service, the experience (fancy stores, etc.), and the reputation that comes along with that blue box. Whole Foods used to be like that, and that was what justified us putting marble floors in the middle of a grocery store. As soon as we started trying to compete with budget stores and cutting our labor, we lost our 'Tiffany' appeal. Instead of trying to compete with low-cost stores, Mackey should have doubled down on our high-class image - hire more workers that are there just to educate shoppers, add valet service, make the stores even fancier. You can not beat Wal-Mart or Sprouts on price ... you have to beat them on customer experience. Mackey should have stuck to the Tiffany's model ... now we can only be Jared (the Galleria of Jewelry) lol.