Whole Foods' well reported price cuts after the Amazon purchase have been more noise than savings, one analyst shows.
Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett Research Advisors, said during a five-week price study looking at 110 SKUs at a New Jersey Whole Foods, he found that overall basket prices trended slightly up from mid-August to late September.
“To put this into some perspective, this degree of decline was far less than the ~25%+ average price cuts made to the list of 15-20 named items, which was well publicized,” he said in a report.
The price study looked at 18 items from the produce department. The total basket ring went from $45.80 on Aug. 21 to $45.50 on Sept. 26. Conventional whole trade bananas dropped a dime, while conventional broccoli dropped 70 cents. Organic avocados also decreased, but conventional blueberries rose $1.
It also noted Amazon Fresh is just beginning to widen its assortment of Whole Foods-branded products, and they found that Amazon's prices for these items matched those offered in stores.