11 Tricks to Shopping at Amazon's Whole Foods

With Amazon.com now firmly in control of Whole Foods, ways to save money at that grocer are growing for Amazon Prime customers but perhaps diminishing for everyone else.

(Image credit: Courtesy Whole Foods Market)

With Amazon.com now firmly in control of Whole Foods, ways to save money at that grocer are growing for Amazon Prime customers but perhaps diminishing for everyone else. Amazon purchased Whole Foods in the summer of 2017 and, on its first day of ownership, slashed prices on an array of items from bananas to organic avocados. In the summer of 2018, Amazon began rolling out additional discounts at Whole Foods exclusively for its Amazon Prime members. Meanwhile, prices on other goods such as frozen foods, dairy products, coffee and tea have gone up.

"[Whole Foods] is fairly characterized by consumers as being overpriced, except for its private-label 365 products," says Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a consumer industry consulting firm. A family of four would typically spend at least $5,500 a year shopping at Whole Foods, estimates Flickinger. But by employing cost-cutting strategies, he says, that annual amount can drop by $1,000 or more.

The chain, which specializes in natural and organic foods, is giving Amazon Prime members, in particular, reasons to drop by. Whole Foods also is now stocking Amazon gadgets, including the voice-activated Amazon Echo and smaller Echo Dot, at deep discounts. Read on to learn more about shopping at the Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

Miriam Cross
Associate Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Miriam lived in Toronto, Canada, before joining Kiplinger's Personal Finance in November 2012. Prior to that, she freelanced as a fact-checker for several Canadian publications, including Reader's Digest Canada, Style at Home and Air Canada's enRoute. She received a BA from the University of Toronto with a major in English literature and completed a certificate in Magazine and Web Publishing at Ryerson University.