Amazon is beginning to take further advantage of its acquisition of Whole Foods by offering additional discounts on sale items to members of its Prime service. Customers that have Prime memberships will soon be receiving an extra 10 percent off of sale items within Whole Foods stores.
Currently, Amazon is trialing the program with certain Whole Foods customers in Florida with the expectation that a national roll out will occur during the summer.
Whole Foods used to be a fairly expensive store known for organics without any artificial additives. Amazon is aiming to change the perception of being too expensive for the majority of shoppers and is using its online shopping business to try and bring more consumers to its grocery stores.
In total, any given Whole Foods store has tens of thousands of products available. Out of the many items carried, Prime discounts will apply to a relatively small number and could help encourage shoppers to purchase items that may not be priced as aggressively.
This is the same tactic that Amazon has employed on its website. Certain items have traditionally been steeply discounted to pricing significantly below competitors. The goal is to create a distraction and make it appear as though Amazon is always going to have the best pricing all the time no matter what you are shopping for.
In order to receive discounts in Whole Foods stores, the Whole Foods app must be downloaded and then a bar code can be scanned at checkouts. Amazon is then able to track purchase history of customers to gather information on which items could be potentially attractive as sale items; a practice so common that it is nearly an exception for a store not to do this.