Amazon is buying Whole Foods!! (Austin, Round Rock: layoffs, tenant, closing)

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

Unbelievable. Didn't see this one coming at all. What a revolting devlopment this turned out to be. Losing 2 Austin born and bred Fortune 500 companies with headquarters in Austin in the past 2 ir 3 yrs or so. Whole Foods and Freescale. On the brightside, if there is one, Amazon is an upgrade from Albertson's. Amazon is a better fit in Austin and it's culture than Albertson's.

I wonder if there's any chance of Amazon moving its headquarters to Austin?

You know the next thing will be Amazon saying it needs to choose whether to expand its HQ in Seattle or move its HQ to Austin, then play the TX and WA governments against each other for maximum gov't subsidies. Just wait!

[Tams here]

Originally Posted by riaelise

The Cedar Park store does nothing for Round Rock, which is twice the size of Cedar Park and has similar demographics. If WF can open stores all over the DFW metroplex, then it makes zero sense to not have a store in the Round Rock/Georgetown/Pflugerville area. These aren't boonie towns.



I don't know what the reason is, but Sprouts sure has capitalized at WF's expense. That store not only gets Round Rock people, it also gets people all along the 35 corridor from Pflugerville to Georgetown. Not opening in Round Rock IMO was dumb. The reason may be some micro-local thing, but Sprouts, a competitor, has a firm grip on the local Round Rock/35 corridor organic market. People in RR (unless they live in the far west) aren't going to trek over to Cedar Park to go to Whole Food lite when there's a Sprouts off 620. Sprouts even has home delivery. Go figure.

There seems to be confusion on the smaller WFs 365 "lite" stores. I was confused when I read another poster say the smaller store was in the Bee Caves area and the DFW suburbs. There are only 5 of the 365 stores in the US. Only one in Austin which is in Cedar Park. These are, for a lack of a better word, trial stores to see if they get that lower priced shopper.

[ATX Wahine]

Originally Posted by Tams here

There seems to be confusion on the smaller WFs 365 "lite" stores. I was confused when I read another poster say the smaller store was in the Bee Caves area and the DFW suburbs. There are only 5 of the 365 stores in the US. Only one in Austin which is in Cedar Park. These are, for a lack of a better word, trial stores to see if they get that lower priced shopper.

The Bee Cave location is just a small WF, not a 365 store.

[A-Tex]

Originally Posted by Tams here

My son just sent me a short video of a packed room Q&A at corporate office right now. Seems they didn't know about this either!


I used to shop at the Burnet & 183 location years ago a lot. Used to love WFs when they were just local and small. I rarely go anymore outside of getting few favorites we like or something special. Long gone are the days when I did regular shopping there.

Federal laws prohibit them from knowing beforehand. Only those most closely involved with the transaction are allowed to know.

[Tams here]

[quote=riaelise;48524730]The Cedar Park store does nothing for Round Rock, which is twice the size of Cedar Park and has similar demographics. If WF can open stores all over the DFW metroplex, then it makes zero sense to not have a store in the Round Rock/Georgetown/Pflugerville area. These aren't boonie towns.



I don't know what the reason is, but Sprouts sure has capitalized at WF's expense. That store not only gets Round Rock people, it also gets people all along the 35 corridor from Pflugerville to Georgetown. Not opening in Round Rock IMO was dumb. The reason may be some micro-local thing, but Sprouts, a competitor, has a firm grip on the local Round Rock/35 corridor organic market. People in RR (unless they live in the far west) aren't going to trek over to Cedar Park to go to Whole Food lite when there's a Sprouts off 620. Sprouts even has home delivery. Go figure.[/QUOTE

The Sprouts in Cedar Park is always practically empty of shoppers. Seriously, I shop there quite a bit and always enjoy it as it is never busy. I always wonder how they stay in business. BTW, from what I understand there is talk of WFs having a home delivery service, too.

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by riaelise

The Cedar Park store does nothing for Round Rock, which is twice the size of Cedar Park and has similar demographics. If WF can open stores all over the DFW metroplex, then it makes zero sense to not have a store in the Round Rock/Georgetown/Pflugerville area. These aren't boonie towns.

I was just addressing your comment about WF ignoring the burbs, which is demonstrably not true. Sounds like your real issue is that WF seems to be ignoring RR in particular. To that I can not speak but it would seem like that area would be prime for a large store (esp considering other "interesting" choices like their Gateway location and it's proximity to the Domain store).

[A-Tex]

[quote=Tams here;48525196]

Originally Posted by riaelise

The Cedar Park store does nothing for Round Rock, which is twice the size of Cedar Park and has similar demographics. If WF can open stores all over the DFW metroplex, then it makes zero sense to not have a store in the Round Rock/Georgetown/Pflugerville area. These aren't boonie towns.



I don't know what the reason is, but Sprouts sure has capitalized at WF's expense. That store not only gets Round Rock people, it also gets people all along the 35 corridor from Pflugerville to Georgetown. Not opening in Round Rock IMO was dumb. The reason may be some micro-local thing, but Sprouts, a competitor, has a firm grip on the local Round Rock/35 corridor organic market. People in RR (unless they live in the far west) aren't going to trek over to Cedar Park to go to Whole Food lite when there's a Sprouts off 620. Sprouts even has home delivery. Go figure.[/QUOTE

The Sprouts in Cedar Park is always practically empty of shoppers. Seriously, I shop there quite a bit and always enjoy it as it is never busy. I always wonder how they stay in business. BTW, from what I understand there is talk of WFs having a home delivery service, too.

Whole Foods delivery is already available through companies such as Instacart.

[riaelise]

[quote=Tams here;48525196]

Originally Posted by riaelise

The Cedar Park store does nothing for Round Rock, which is twice the size of Cedar Park and has similar demographics. If WF can open stores all over the DFW metroplex, then it makes zero sense to not have a store in the Round Rock/Georgetown/Pflugerville area. These aren't boonie towns.



I don't know what the reason is, but Sprouts sure has capitalized at WF's expense. That store not only gets Round Rock people, it also gets people all along the 35 corridor from Pflugerville to Georgetown. Not opening in Round Rock IMO was dumb. The reason may be some micro-local thing, but Sprouts, a competitor, has a firm grip on the local Round Rock/35 corridor organic market. People in RR (unless they live in the far west) aren't going to trek over to Cedar Park to go to Whole Food lite when there's a Sprouts off 620. Sprouts even has home delivery. Go figure.[/QUOTE

The Sprouts in Cedar Park is always practically empty of shoppers. Seriously, I shop there quite a bit and always enjoy it as it is never busy. I always wonder how they stay in business. BTW, from what I understand there is talk of WFs having a home delivery service, too.

The Round Rock store, on the other hand, is very busy. Sprouts has a lot of competition in Cedar Park. Not in Round Rock, though the local grocers, Target, and Walmart have also taken advantage of the lack of a dedicated organic grocer and stock their shelves with a lot of organic products. I wouldn't call RR an organic food desert..not at all...but WF really blew it by not opening a store. There's a big legion of people who are into organic food - my mother for example - who live along the 35 corridor.

[Tams here]

Originally Posted by A-Tex

Federal laws prohibit them from knowing beforehand. Only those most closely involved with the transaction are allowed to know.

Wasn't aware of that!
Lol, heck, me, my other son and my ex knew about this before my WFs employed son knew via news reports. All three of us texted him this AM asking him what the deal was!

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

I was just addressing your comment about WF ignoring the burbs, which is demonstrably not true. Sounds like your real issue is that WF seems to be ignoring RR in particular. To that I can not speak but it would seem like that area would be prime for a large store (esp considering other "interesting" choices like their Gateway location and it's proximity to the Domain store).

You are correct in that my issue is more local vs. suburban cities in the general sense. But it's not just RR, but the areas along the IH 35 corridor including Pflugerville, Georgetown and beyond. Pflugerville has 50,000+ people and increasing daily, GT, 50,000+ people and increasing daily, in addition to RR, which is over 100k+ people and increasing daily. Though to be honest I don't have a dog in this fight because I can easily find organic stuff in my local market. But I do know there are many people locally that clamored for an organic grocer for years before Sprouts came.