Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods deals abundant on Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day is almost upon us, and the online retail giant has announced a wide range of deals to help boost its Amazon Fresh grocery stores. 

Amazon competitors Target and Walmart are also offering substantial grocery discounts for the competing events that run concurrently with Prime Day. Meanwhile, data analytics firms like Numerator and Placer.ai are gearing up to track and report on this year’s trends. 

At Amazon Fresh, members of the Amazon Prime premium service can get 25% off their in-store purchases during the Prime Day event, which runs Tuesday and Wednesday. Prime members interested in getting in on the deal, though, might have trouble finding an Amazon Fresh store—the company only has 44 brick-and-mortar locations, according to its website, and 18 of those are California. Amazon also has nine locations in Illinois, five each in Virginia and Washington state, two each in Pennsylvania and Maryland, one each in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. 

Amazon is also working to promote its Amazon Prime Visa credit card by boosting the discount shoppers typically receive to 6% from the normal cash-back savings of 5%. The card does not include an annual fee, but it does require an Amazon Prime membership, which runs $14.99 per month or $139 a year.  

Whole Foods Market, a subsidiary of Amazon, is also getting into the game, offering the same 6% cash-back deal for shoppers using their Amazon Prime Visa card at the store during the Prime Day event. The grocer also is offering 10% off hundreds of in-store items in addition to select deals, such as 35% off ice cream and frozen desserts until July 18.

Both Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods are also offering substantial discounts on many of the 365 by Whole Foods brand products, which are available at both stores.  

Walmart and Target have announced their own grocery deals for Walmart Week and Target Circle Week, which run through Thursday and Saturday, respectively.  

Grocery deals at Target are available to Target Circle members (membership is free) through the app or in-store and include 20% off Mountain Dew, Bubly and Gatorade items, 20% off breakfast cereal and 20% off K-Cup and ground coffee. Target is also offering discounts in the form of gift cards—Circle members can get a $15 Target gift card for spending $50 on household essentials items, for instance.  

Walmart is also touting its deals this week, starting with a 50% one-time discount to join its $98 premium service Walmart .  

Data analytics firms and economists will be watching closely, and some, such as Chicago-based data firm Numerator, will provide up-to-date analysis of the retail sales cage match. Numerator’s live coverage begins on Tuesday and will provide an “early read” of the numbers to show “who’s shopping, what they’re buying and how much they’re spending.” 

Placer.ai has released a preliminary report speculating that consumers have been thriftier overall this year, but might be “gearing up to hit the stores.” 

Despite high interest rates triggering more caution in consumer spending, holidays in 2023 have already proven relatively successful for retail sales. “Even holidays not traditionally associated with discounts—Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and even St. Patrick’s Day—brought a spike in retail visits. Meanwhile, Memorial Day—typically the first major sales event of the year—saw a relatively subdued increase,” the Placer.ai report noted.