In this week’s Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, A&M’s Joanna Rangarajan and Mohit Mohal joined Chris and Anne to debate Amazon's partnership with Winn Dixie for grocery delivery in Florida. Our panel explores whether regional grocers should partner with their biggest competitive threat, the strategic implications for both companies, and how this fits into Amazon's broader grocery expansion. From market reach to brand control, we analyze all angles of this controversial partnership!

For the full Fast Five episode head here

#Amazon #Grocery #WinnDixie #ecommerce #retailfulfillment

Amazon has launched online Winn Dixie grocery delivery in Florida.

According to ChainStorage, the online giant is now offering the full Winn Dixie grocery assortment alongside its own selection of grocery and everyday household items for delivery on its site in the greater Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida areas.

Customers can shop for groceries from Winn Dixie on Amazon by visiting a dedicated page on the E commerce retailer site or by using the Amazon Shopping app.

The offering includes more than 16,000 items cheese 16,000 items across multiple categories for a limited time.

This is interesting too.

Both prime members and customers without a Prime membership will enjoy free delivery on all Winn Dixie orders over $25 with two hour delivery windows.

And Winn Dixie members can also link their Win Dixie rewards accounts with their Amazon accounts to earn one point for every $2 spent on Winn Dixie Amazon orders.

Mohit, I'm curious, would you have advised Winn Dixie to partner with Amazon in this manner?

Absolutely.

I mean if you think about, I mean if you think about what happened after Covid, right?

A lot of regional and small grocers have actually gone to the Uber Eats doordash instacart squares of the world to really partner and build delivery capabilities on.

We looked at this for one of our clients recently and somewhere around 30 to 40% of the gross merchandise value on these platforms today is now flowing through grocery, convenience and other store formats.

So it's no longer a food delivery platform.

It has grocery, it has your over the counter drugs, it has your day to day other consumables from a nearby store.

So what that means is for regional grocers like Vin Dixie, when you are partnering on these platforms, you are in a very crowded ecosystem, right?

You are competing with the publics, you're competing with everyone who's kind of out there now.

For Amazon, if you kind of think about Whole Foods, having a regional grocer kind of adds a different price point and a different set of consumers which are not yet on that platform.

From a grocery perspective and from Vindixie's perspective, right other side of the equation, it kind of helps them further expand their delivery vehicle and the consumers they can reach.

On the one question which I would have or a watch out is what does this do for, for Amazon?

From a profitability and a customer acquisition perspective, that's a question mark for me.

But from Windex's perspective, definitely, you know this, this seems like a great outcome and obviously it seems like this is a pilot which they are testing in a couple of metros in Florida.

So you know that that needs to Be seen how, how it turns out.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I mean for Amazon it's definitely a win.

Like Amazon wants this all day long and they've been, this has been a key part of the strategy.

But I, I'm, see, I go the other way on this boy.

And I, I, I, I want to get your thoughts on this because like I was, I was sitting down as in preparing this, I was thinking about like if I was a grocery executive, what would be my rubric for how I would approach this problem, right?

And so for me, the first thing I would go to is I'd look at, you know, can I white label in store my in store picking and my e commerce site from one of the many providers out there.

There's so many of them, you know, like Instacart will do it.

There's some that, you know, don't even have that much name recognition in the industry.

So that's number one.

Then second off, I would think, okay, if I need the reach, like, cause that's part of what you're saying about or what you're talking about here too.

If I need the reach and if I only think I can get that reach or I need to do it because it's a competitive reaction to something like you said with the public example, do I go on the, I go on the non Amazon marketplaces first, right?

The Instacarts, the Doordashes, the Uber Eats.

And then and only then after I do that experiment and understand what that reach gives me, then and only then do I start to assess whether Amazon is, is something worthwhile for me to go into next.

And even then I think I still don't do it because defensively Amazon is like the biggest threat to me in grocery potentially.

So I don't know why I would give them the ability to grow grocery on the back of me as a regional grocer.

But what do you think as I laid that out, like what I get right, what I get wrong?

I mean like always you got a lot of things right, but we just maybe have a difference of perspective on few things, right?

Let's not forget there is anywhere between 190 to 200 million consumers in the US alone which are on prime, right?

So you can white label and build this capability in house.

It's super easy.

There's no other platform which can give you access to 200 million consumers, period.

And the second thing which I would say is like, Chris, you've been in this business for a long time.

We've been talking about Amazon as A competitive threat for the last 20 years.

And the reality is every major brand, every single industry, every single category has had to partner with Amazon.

It's not an option, it's a necessity.

So that's how I think about it.

Yeah, I would agree.

Every category.

I don't know that every retailer has had to partner with Amazon to this same degree, but.

And true.

And the regional and the grocery industry is, has relatively fortified themselves more than others.

And what do you think here?

And then, Joanna, we'll go to you last.

Yeah, I, I guess I'm just curious again, for Mohead and for Joanna, like, the couple things that come to mind here are brand reputation.

I think last week's Amazon announcement about doing delivery now in conjunction with electronics items and other things that you're ordering from them.

Like, in my mind, it's just now you have this one Amazon driver who's going into Winn Dixie stores and getting, you know, are they going to disrupt the shoppers that are already in there?

And then how does, like, that pickup order that they're getting kind of factor into the other 25 packages that they have in their car?

So I guess there's still some logistics, things that if I'm Winn Dixie, in addition to the great points that Chris made, I think I'd still be curious about, like, is that product, especially refrigerated and frozen product, going to arrive with my other goods?

You know, is it going to be to the quality level of Winn Dixie?

So that's, that's the thing that I think I'd be curious about here versus what Chris was talking about, going with a player, established player, like an Instacart or Uber Eats or somebody like that.

All right, Joanna, what are your thoughts here?

You know, I'm kind of conflicted on this, but I'm, I'm with Mohit on.

I see, see why this is a good pilot option for Winn Dixie.

I think, you know, that's the reason a pilot exists.

You know, let's test, let's learn.

So some of the things, Ann, that you brought up can be validated, or course, corrected.

You know, Winn Dixie is lagging behind Publix in, in Florida specifically.

So, you know, this does seem to be a little bit of a way out.

I think, Chris, your framing around, you know, am I going to let Amazon grow grocery on.

On my back was kind of a question that I had.

Well, more from just the Winn Dixie customer relationship.

And am I risking sort of handing that entire relationship over where, you know, in the short term, this may look good, but in the long term, it may not.

So those were a few of the.

The thoughts that I had.

Yeah, it's a slippery slope.

Oh, yeah, sorry, Joanna.

It's a slippery slope to going on Amazon and, you know, ordering Winn Dixie's vegetables or whatever, or their, you know, their, their Mac and cheese.

Let's use that.

The box of Max and cheese and then Amazon serving it up right alongside it at some point and just, you know, casually switching over at.

In time.

That's a really interesting point.

I never thought about that.