Amazon/Whole Foods: What, Me Worry?
One year after the Amazon/Whole Foods merger, prices at Whole Foods stores have gone down, Rob Atkinson notes in a commentary piece for Truth on the Market: Amazon Prime members receive discounts on select products and if they use their Amazon credit card they receive 5 percent back. Consumers in many markets can now order groceries online and have them delivered for free. Amazon is expanding the number of stores nationwide. Not surprisingly, consumers appear to like the post-merger changes. Moreover, competitors are fighting back. Kroger, for example, is increasing its stock of organic foods, starting free grocery delivery, and expanding private label goods to reduce prices.
In other words, one year out, the merger has done what its defenders said it would do: improve consumer welfare. But if today’s neo-Brandeisian opponents of all things big had gotten their way, the merger would not have happened.
