Whole Foods Market and Amazon are teaming up to make grocery shopping easier by bringing both brands under one roof. A new pilot store in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, lets customers shop for natural and organic foods from Whole Foods while also picking up national name-brand groceries and household items from Amazon, all in one trip.
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The 10,000-square-foot “store within a store” includes an automated micro-fulfillment center that holds more than 12,000 products. Shoppers can grab what they need off the shelves and also use QR codes throughout the store to order additional Amazon items, like Tide detergent or Nestlé Drumsticks, for pickup before they leave.
“At Whole Foods Market, we’ve always taken pride in offering a wide selection of natural and organic products, but we understand our customers appreciate the convenience of one-stop shopping,” said Jason Buechel, Vice President of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and CEO of Whole Foods Market. “We’re making grocery shopping more convenient for customers by thoughtfully blending our grocery offerings and leveraging new fulfillment capabilities in creative ways.”
The store’s micro-fulfillment center runs on technology from Fulfil, a Silicon Valley robotics company that specializes in grocery automation. Its “ShopBots” handle everything from sorting to staging items across temperature zones, keeping the busy back-end operations out of sight while orders are prepared for pickup or delivery within minutes.
Online shoppers will also notice the change. When they use the Whole Foods Market storefront in the Amazon app or on Amazon.com, they’ll now see an expanded product mix that includes both Whole Foods’ private-label items and Amazon’s top-selling everyday goods. Customers can add everything to one cart and pick up their full order in-store or curbside.
Amazon says grocery pickup is free for all customers, and Prime members can get delivery for $9.95 per order or subscribe for $9.99 a month for unlimited deliveries on orders over $25 from Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, and other local partners.
Amazon plans to expand this combined shopping model to more locations after reviewing feedback from the Pennsylvania launch.
