Amazon built a portal for Kraft Mac & Cheese, Goldfish crackers and Nestlé Drumsticks inside one of its Whole Foods stores, and plans to do the same at others. In a blog post on wednesdayAmazon details a Whole Foods store concept in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, where shoppers can order grocery items from Amazon using QR codes scattered throughout the supermarket.
The Pennsylvania concept store has a built-in “microfulfillment center” packed with products that wouldn’t normally be found inside Whole Foods. When a customer places an order on Amazon Fresh, autonomous “ShopBot” robots developed by a company called Fulfill will begin retrieving the products. Customers will then receive a text notification when their order is ready to be picked up at the Amazon Pickup and Return counter inside the store.
“As we gather customer feedback from this first location, we plan to refine and expand this offering to additional stores over time,” Amazon says.
a report of The Wall Street Journal It first highlighted the Pennsylvania-based Whole Foods store concept last year. This new post from Amazon provides even more information about the format, which attempts to introduce more products to Whole Foods without tarnishing the store’s reputation for selling natural and organic products. Amazon also launched a separate experiment in Chicago that put an Amazon Fresh store right next door to Whole Foods.
In addition to allowing shoppers to place orders while inside the Plymouth Meeting Whole Foods, Amazon says local customers can also place orders online, which they can then pick up in-store or have delivered. “We’re making grocery shopping more convenient for customers by carefully combining our grocery offerings and leveraging new fulfillment capabilities in creative ways,” Buechel says.
