Beware of Food Price Increases Due to Amazon Early Discounts
Here’s some disappointing news for all of us who thought we could save some of our paycheck by shopping at Whole Foods thanks to the Amazon takeover, which seemed to result in an immediate (and quite significant) price cut. The research firm tracked the numbers and found that prices were rising again from the first day of the deal, some even higher than they were before Bezos. Return to Trader Joe?
On August 28, the day of the takeover, we visited a Whole Foods facility in California , where things looked promising: milk was 50 cents cheaper, organic brown eggs were down a dollar, and organic chicken grills were down 20 cents. 4 dollars. But according to research group Gordon Haskett, overall prices for Whole Foods fell very little after the Amazon deal – only about 1 percent. Strategically, the company appears to have slashed the prices of everyday items that families regularly buy and increased the prices of other items.
So if you only buy staple foods like eggs, avocado, tilapia, and almond oil, you may still feel like you’re getting good deals. But if you have other items in your basket, you can compare prices – for example, after the takeover, frozen foods rose 7 percent and snacks rose 5.3 percent. Of the 110 items the firm monitors, prices are down 17 and up 16.
It may sound obvious, but supermarket analyst David J. Livingston gives us a good reminder of the “deals,” telling The Washington Post : “As with all grocery stores, if prices go down somewhere, prices go up elsewhere.”