Amazon: ‘No one solution’ for fresh fulfillment

Amazon will approach fresh food delivery in a variety of ways, an executive said Thursday, but declined to go into detail of the role Whole Foods Market may play in that strategy.

Amazon, which in June announced it would acquire the natural food retailer for $13.7 billion, declined to comment in detail on Whole Foods during an earnings call Thursday, noting the deal was not yet complete.

But when asked by an analyst whether the acquisition of Whole Foods represented a change in its fresh-food strategy — described previously as replacing as trip to the grocery store — CFO Brian Olsavsky said, “We believe there will be no one solution.”

“We are experimenting with a number of formats [from] physical pickup points in Amazon Go to online ordering and delivering to your door through Prime Now and AmazonFresh,” Olsavsky said. “And we'll see how customers respond. We like the response that we've seen so far; we think it's a valuable, all those are valuable services. On top of that, were looking forward to adding the Whole Foods team and their great reputation for quality customer service to this offering.”

Of the pending acquisition, Olsavsky said, “We are excited about that and looking forward to working with the team at Whole Foods. We think they are very customer-centric, just like us. They built a great business, focused quality and customer service. So we are really glad to join up with them.”

Amazon’s financial results, which are frequently unpredictable, were just that in the quarter ended June 30, with revenues exceeding estimates at $38 billion — a 25% increase — but net earnings falling by 77%, mainly due to investments in infrastructure, the Seattle company said. Earnings per share of 40 cents came in below analyst estimates of $1.42.