Whole Foods axes luxurious merchandise in favour of discounted gadgets as losses widen
W
hole Foods is scrapping luxurious choices and ramping up its vary of cut-price merchandise at London shops because it seeks to rekindle its attraction to middle-income consumers amid widening losses.
The high-end grocery store has axed its well-known ‘cheese vault,’ a separate room at its flagship Kensington website full of high-quality cheeses that carried a hefty price ticket, in addition to slashing its vary of eco-friendly, packaging-free grains and nuts that may be bought utilizing refillable containers.
The Amazon-owned agency has additionally scaled again checkout staffing and launched self-service checkouts resembling these of mid-market supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
It has launched scores of “low prices” indicators throughout shops in addition to a raft of discounted gadgets.
Whole Foods didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In accounts printed in June, the agency posted pre-tax losses of £26 million, a rise of 52% on the earlier 12 months, whereas turnover dipped 3% to £92 million because it bemoaned “decreased demand driven by higher costs caused by inflation.”
The firm, which has seven shops in London, additionally reduce the variety of in-store workers by 24. Whole Foods’ guardian firm, US e-commerce big Amazon, has already shut three of its London ‘Fresh’ grocery stores since the start of the year.
Shoppers have more and more snubbed premium supermarkets in favour of discounters over the previous 12 months as cost-of-living pressures squeeze shopper budgets. Aldi and Lidl have seen their market shares rocket 21.2% and 19.8% respectively over the previous 12 months, in accordance with knowledge from Kantar, whereas these of Waitrose and Ocado have slipped again over the identical interval.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and shopper perception at Kantar, mentioned: “Retailers are really battling it out to show value to shoppers, but if consumers feel their offer isn’t quite right then they’ll go elsewhere.
“Consumers are continuing to shop around, visiting at least three major retailers every month on average. The discounters have been big beneficiaries of this.”