Whole Foods rivals Trader Joe’s and Sprouts Farmers Market Inc have been hit hardest by customer defections since Amazon.com Inc’s price cuts at the premium grocer, Whole Foods price cuts, a data analytics firm said on Tuesday.
Amazon cut prices on select items at Whole Foods on Aug. 28. On the first day, customer traffic spiked 31 percent from a year earlier. Traffic jumped 17 percent during the week after the price reductions and remained up 4 percent for the week ended Sept. 16, according to Thasos Group, which analyzes location data from millions of mobile phones.
Ten percent of Trader Joe’s regular customers visited Whole Foods between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3, more than any other competing chain, Thasos Group said. Sprouts was No. 2 at 8 percent, followed by Target Corp at 3 percent and Costco Wholesale Corp and Safeway at 2 percent each.
Read the full article here.