Amazon is in for some culture shock

Amazon is buying Whole Foods. I think they are in for a rude awakening.

Amazon is in the business of selling anything (within legal limits). Whole Foods is in the business of selling green (as in wholesome) food. Walmart is the biggest seller of food and sells only a little green food. There are going to have to be some big changes at Whole Foods to take market share away form Walmart.

Amazon is in to robots. Whole Foods strikes me as a people store. Again I see a culture difference.

Today, I read a blog post that said that there were more libraries than Starbucks. The writer is on to something. There is a library in the city of Camarillo with a built in coffee shop. Every library should have one.

Now combine Amazon with coffee shops and you could have Amazon buy Starbucks. Again they would have a massive culture shock. Amazon doesn’t fit Starbucks’ image.

A better idea would be for Amazon to buy The Coffee Bean and Tea Shop group. They have better coffee, Starbucks coffee tastes burnt. Both companies have shops are all over the place. You could go down for a quick cup and pick up your Amazon deliveries. Amazon could install sets of lockers at the coffee shop to hold valuable deliveries. The coffee shops are open long hours, you could swing by on your way to work or returning from work and pick up your Amazon purchase. And with long hours there would be employees there to keep an eye on the lockers. Of course they could have lockers that could be accessed at any time, just stick in your Amazon credit card.

Coffee goes with reading the newspaper and Amazon owns the Post. Coffee also goes good with a book. They could sell e-books at the coffee shop. I can see the recommendation on the wall mounted black board. Buy a peppermint mocha coffee and get half off on George Orwell. The coffee shops have free WiFi and Amazon could force adds on the free WiFi when you log on. The adds don’t have to be for books, they could be for anything. How about a movie and a headset with your espresso.

This is just what Amazon needs, buyers over loaded on caffeine with their credit card already out.

Stay strong, write on.    Professor Hyram Voltage