Amazon Essentially Gets Whole Foods For Free And Causes Other Grocers Stock Prices to Plummet Into Oblivion

Earlier this morning, Amazon shook the shit out of the grocery realm by buying Whole Foods Market for approximately $14.7 billion.  This power move has consequentially caused the stock prices of rival grocery chains to absolutely plummet.

As of 4:00 PM EST, Amazon and Whole Foods stock prices have risen to 987.71 [+23.54(2.44%) ] and 42.68 [+9.62(29.10%)] respectively. By the time the trading floor closed today, each of Amazon’s 478 million shares worth $987.71 boosted their market cap to $15.6 billion, essentially getting Whole Foods for free, and still profiting a little under $2 billion.

In layman’s terms, business is booming.  Their competitors? Not so much.

The other grocery store chains depleted numbers are as follows:

Kroger—22.29[-2.27(9.24%)]
Target—52.61[-2.85(5.14%)]
Walmart—75.24[-3.67(4.65%)]
Costco—167.11[-12.95(7.19%)]
Smart & Final—9.10[-2.10(18.75%)]

While Target and Walmart took a smaller hit than the others, the substantial shift in the grocery industry may only be the beginning of major changes in the near future. We can only speculate that Amazon is trying to bullet train their Amazon Go concept into more cities at a quicker rate as another cog in their master plan for total domination.

Amazon has already began to simplify the shopping process over their webstore with the “Dash Buttons” feature, or by using “Alexa” enabled voice recognition products.  Sooner or later, we might see Amazon create an absolute stronghold within the brick and mortar grocery industry by implementing the “no checkout lanes necessary” innovation, or it will force others to adapt to try and compete; weeding out the ones that don’t respond.

At the end of the day, the future of groceries looks to be taking a step in the right direction, and Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods can be a solid blueprint of success for other companies to follow.