• Digiday reports that Amazon is reaching out to lower income shoppers than it traditionally has targeted, “running a discounted $5.99 per month Prime program for customers on government benefits” and offering “a bargain section on its site.”
The story goes on: “The company also created other features like delivery pickup points to serve customers who have difficulty accepting packages. Amazon is also part of a yet-to-be-launched USDA pilot, which will allow SNAP recipients to use EBT cards to make online purchases at participating retailers … It’s an effort to gain ground in an area where Walmart and dollar stores have a home-court advantage, with low prices and a broad physical footprint. But Amazon is betting on a digitally comfortable lower-income consumer for whom time is a premium resource.”
It is, Digiday points out, “fertile ground for Amazon: According to a Piper Jaffray study from October 2018, new Prime subscribers are increasingly coming from middle- and lower-income segments.”
• The San Francisco Business Times reports that “Instacart is cutting 8 part-time employees in Cupertino and 56 in Los Angeles effective Feb. 10 … This is just the tip of the iceberg. On Dec. 12, Instacart announced 243 of its 1,415 part-time in store shoppers who delivered groceries from 76 Whole Foods markets across the nation would be laid off beginning in February.
“The Instacart layoffs are a result of Whole Foods severing ties with Instacart, following Amazon’s buyout of the grocer. Amazon is a competitor of Instacart. The on-demand grocery delivery startup, however, plans place more than 75 percent of the affected Whole Foods shoppers at other neighboring retailers in their area that it strikes deals with.”
The story goes on: “The company also created other features like delivery pickup points to serve customers who have difficulty accepting packages. Amazon is also part of a yet-to-be-launched USDA pilot, which will allow SNAP recipients to use EBT cards to make online purchases at participating retailers … It’s an effort to gain ground in an area where Walmart and dollar stores have a home-court advantage, with low prices and a broad physical footprint. But Amazon is betting on a digitally comfortable lower-income consumer for whom time is a premium resource.”
It is, Digiday points out, “fertile ground for Amazon: According to a Piper Jaffray study from October 2018, new Prime subscribers are increasingly coming from middle- and lower-income segments.”
• The San Francisco Business Times reports that “Instacart is cutting 8 part-time employees in Cupertino and 56 in Los Angeles effective Feb. 10 … This is just the tip of the iceberg. On Dec. 12, Instacart announced 243 of its 1,415 part-time in store shoppers who delivered groceries from 76 Whole Foods markets across the nation would be laid off beginning in February.
“The Instacart layoffs are a result of Whole Foods severing ties with Instacart, following Amazon’s buyout of the grocer. Amazon is a competitor of Instacart. The on-demand grocery delivery startup, however, plans place more than 75 percent of the affected Whole Foods shoppers at other neighboring retailers in their area that it strikes deals with.”
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