Amazon Trials Delivery Services At Whole Foods

Amazon will be providing pickup and drop-off services for packages at select Whole Foods locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Amazon shoppers can either visit a staffed help desk or use a self-service kiosk for the service, which launched this week at the Addison store at 5100 Belt Line Road. It is also available in Austin and Lubbock.

The new delivery service is different from the Amazon lockers that are also offered at certain Whole Foods locations. For example, the Addison store will hold customer packages for up to 15 days, while the lockers offer only three day holds. In addition, packages can be returned there without a box, and employees will pack it up and send it out.

All Amazon customers can use the Whole Foods stores for the pickup and drop-off service, but Amazon Prime members will receive free same-day delivery to a store without a minimum order.

Late last year it was reported that Amazon was planning to expand the number of Whole Foods stores around the country to enable more customers to use its delivery service.

In fact, Amazon wants to expand its Prime Now two-hour delivery service and online grocery pickup from Whole Foods. It is already gearing up to expand the services to close to all of its 475 Whole Foods stores around the country, according to sources.

Since Amazon acquired Whole Foods, sales have increased but profits aren’t up — in part because the Prime discounts negatively impact margins at Whole Foods. Yet Amazon is still focused for now on getting Prime up and running in as many as Whole Foods stores as possible.

“Strategic investments to improve Whole Foods will only increase the already intense competitiveness in the grocery space,” Bob Goldin, co-founder of consulting group Pentallect, said in December.