By Heather Haddon and Jaewon Kang
Whole Foods Market, once a paragon of leisurely high-end
shopping, has become a battleground where well-heeled shoppers
fight for elbow room and choice salmon cuts with harried delivery
couriers.
Since Amazon.com Inc. bought the natural grocer in 2017, Whole
Foods stores have been flooded with what the company calls Prime
Now shoppers, under pressure to accurately fill grocery orders for
customers to arrive in as little as an hour. As these hired
shoppers dash through aisles and bang carts into shelves of quinoa,
there is less room for the niceties that many customers felt
justified the chain's "whole paycheck" reputation for high
prices.
"The folks running around to fill delivery orders is just
unpleasant," said Julie Gelfat, a San Diego resident who recently
abandoned her once-beloved Whole Foods for a natural organic local
chain called Lazy Acres Market Inc.
Amazon's push into grocery has upset the applecart for
supermarkets across the U.S. Kroger Co., Albertsons Cos. and others
are expanding online shopping and striking deals with delivery
companies such as Instacart Inc.
As a result, a legion of gig-economy shoppers has flooded U.S.
supermarkets, scouring shelves for goods customers have ordered
online. That is causing consternation in aisle three.
"Instacart drivers think they're playing Mario Kart," said
Cedric Love, a 30-year-old research assistant from Boston, who
tangles with delivery shoppers at his local Wegmans Food Markets
Inc. He avoids checkout lines where he can see Instacart shoppers,
who wear T-shirts, paying for multiple orders.
Instacart is adding new technology to help couriers find what
customers have ordered more quickly, a spokeswoman said. Wegmans
notifies staff and Instacart of customer complaints, said
spokeswoman Jo Natale. "It is important to us and to Instacart that
the experience of shopping at Wegmans remains an enjoyable one,"
Ms. Natale said.
Most U.S. consumers still want to squeeze a tomato or peek
inside a carton of eggs before buying. A Gallup poll this summer
found 81% of respondents hadn't ordered groceries online. But that
is changing. Instacart sales at Kroger and Costco Wholesale Corp.
nearly doubled in the last year, according to market-research firm
Edison Trends.
Gig shoppers say their job is no picnic. Tim Holley of Ventura
County, Calif., fills orders at Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. stores
for Instacart. The 32-year-old said he is under too much pressure
to think about the comfort of people perusing the fruit and steaks
at their leisure.
"It is like living in 'Supermarket Sweep,' " he said, referring
to the TV game show where contestants run timed races through a
store.
The father of two said the job has tarnished the enjoyment he
used to find in family grocery runs to Costco. He has been there
too many times filling unwieldy orders like a purchase of 50
cut-rate jugs of olive oil.
"Now that I'm shopping for other people's food, it is losing its
luster, " he said.
Amazon sees delivery from Whole Foods as a key part of expanding
its Prime membership program. The company has added free two-hour
delivery to Prime members from Whole Foods stores in about 90 U.S.
markets. Earlier this year, the company said demand for delivery
from Whole Foods is exceeding expectations.
Meghan Clark, a consultant and a business owner in Jacksonville,
Fla., said she only shops at Whole Foods through Prime Now
deliveries. It saves her time, as the closest Whole Foods store is
a 40-minute drive from her condominium.
"I've ordered before on the plane and had timed it to get in
after I arrive," said Ms. Clark, 47. She values the convenience and
often asks the Prime shoppers to bring three to five bags of
groceries to her door. "Even if I'm in my jammies, I can go and get
it," she said. "I don't have to worry about what I look like and
being presentable."
Tensions are running high at Whole Foods, where Amazon's zeal
for rapid delivery is at odds with the chain's high-end image.
James Allen, a 45-year-old merchandise director in Los Angeles,
used to cherish the "elevated grocery experience" he found at his
local Whole Foods several times a week. That changed with the
arrival of the couriers rushing to collect as many items as
possible from shopping lists on their smartphones.
"They'll usually have a device on a lanyard around their neck
and a sort of a lost look on their faces," he said.
Andrew Conway, a 52-year-old technology project manager in
Arlington, Mass., waited 15 minutes last month for vegetarian
"chopped liver" at a Whole Foods deli counter. Workers behind the
counter told a crowd of half-a-dozen that Amazon shoppers filling
multiple orders were slowing things down, he said.
"The chaos is more than what I want to deal with at a grocery
store," Mr. Conway said.
A worker in the seafood department at one Midwestern Whole Foods
store said Prime Now shoppers frequently clear out her wild salmon
supply by midmorning.
"I open my department at six and there are Amazon shoppers
already there, " she said.
Amazon is trying to keep the Prime Now pickers out of customers'
way. A Whole Foods in a Milwaukee suburb earlier this year closed
its juice bar to make room for an Amazon delivery station,
employees said. Workers that once made smoothies now chop
watermelon for sale in the store in the backroom.
At another Whole Foods, a coffee bar was razed to make room for
an area for the Prime Now shoppers to put their bags. One employee
at a Whole Foods in Minnesota said managers placed signs in the
storage area reminding Prime Now shoppers to walk on the right side
of the corridor to tamp down congestion.
Traffic collisions still happen.
"Every couple of weeks there would be an email saying 'Some
customer in Boston rammed a picker with his cart out of
frustration,'" said a former employee who worked at a number of
Whole Foods stores. "Getting bumped into by carts hurts a lot,"
said another worker at a Whole Foods in Florida.
Some customers have worked out hacks to avoid the pickers. John
Totter, a 56-year-old piano technician in Rhode Island, makes his
Whole Foods runs when the store opens to avoid the lunch and dinner
rush of Prime Now couriers.
He stays away altogether during the late August weeks that
college students are returning to campus and stocking their
apartments via Prime.
"It adds a whole degree of craziness," he said.
--Dana Mattioli contributed to this article.
Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com and Jaewon
Kang at jaewon.kang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 28, 2019 13:04 ET (17:04 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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