Amazon/Whole Foods planning store pickup service from third-party retailers

Amazon.com wants to negate one advantage that rivals such as Walmart, Target, Kroger and others have — store pickup. The e-tailing giant is looking to offer a pickup service at Whole Foods’ stores that will not only include orders from the organic grocery chain, but also from a host of other retailers. According to the reports, Amazon is seeking a finance manager that will help build a pickup business from the ground up. The job posting, which was first reported on by the Puget Sound Business Journal, said the person hired would be behind "the Whole Foods delivery and pick-up service on the ultra-fast Prime Now app and enable our Prime customers to shop from a set of marquee third-party retailers." What potentially makes the described service different from those offered by Walmart and others is that it would appear to offer pickup from online orders placed with Whole Foods, Amazon and perhaps others, as well. What’s not clear is if the third-party retailers described will all be drawn from Amazon’s marketplace or from outside sources. Third-parties selling on Amazon run the gamut from individuals to major brick and mortar chains such as The Children’s Place. An expanded in-store pickup option would serve a number of purposes for Amazon including cutting shipping costs related to home delivery while providing added flexibility for consumers, some whom have difficulty receiving packages at home. The offering also provides an opportunity for Whole Foods to increase sales as the experiences of other retailers has shown that offering in-store pickup drives incremental revenues. Roughly 40 percent of consumers, according to a JDA survey, report they “sometimes” buy additional items when they go to a store to collect orders placed online.

• Amazon job postings reveal plans for Whole Foods grocery pickup – Puget Sound Business Journal
• Amazon just accidentally revealed its next plan for Whole Foods in a job posting – Business Inside
• Co-opetition with Amazon works for The Children’s Place – RetailWire
• Is ‘free’ a big enough incentive to get consumers to try click and collect? – RetailWire