Amazon Whole Foods

Amazon paid $13.7 billion for Whole Foods in 2017. Wall Street assumed it was about groceries. It was about data. Within two years, Amazon had mapped the purchasing habits of tens of millions of households that previously bought everything offline. Whole Foods had 470 stores in premium zip codes. Average household income near a Whole Foods location was $78,000, 40% above the national median. Amazon bought access to the wealthiest shopping corridors in America without building a single new location. The integration was surgical. Amazon linked prime membership to Whole Foods discounts. Within six months, prime sign-ups from Whole Foods shoppers rose by 25%. Each new prime member spent an average of $1,400 more per year on Amazon than non-members.