Amazon is working to streamline the grocery shopping experience for its customers by combining the offerings of Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon.com, with a focus on selection, savings, and convenience, particularly for Prime members.
To do this, the online giant is testing automated ‘mini warehouses’ in order to attract more customers away from other grocery retailers.
The company is constructing a micro-fulfilment centre at a Whole Foods store in Plymouth Meeting, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Once the facility is operational, expected within the next year, customers will be able to order products from Amazon’s website and its online grocery service, Amazon Fresh, and pick up their items at the Whole Foods location while completing their in-store checkout.
At a press event held near an Amazon warehouse in Nashville, Anand Varadarajan, who leads the product and technology teams for Amazon’s worldwide grocery business, demonstrated what the completed facility will look like.
A small, automated warehouse would be built onto the Whole Foods store, where robots would pick, transport, and then place items into bags to be picked up by customers.
READ MORE: Amazon unveils next generation of fulfilment centres filled with AI-powered robots
Amazon aims to simplify this process by offering a broader range of products and services through its various platforms, allowing shoppers to access millions of items from Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market.
Vice President, Product and Technology, Worldwide Grocery Stores at Amazon, said at the presentation: “Customers shopping at Whole Foods Market today are looking for natural and organic products.
“However, our data shows that many of them also visit additional stores to complete their regular grocery shopping needs. With our micro fulfillment center, we can reduce the need for our customers to visit different stores or make multiple online orders.”
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