The article points out this inventory system was introduced before the Amazon take-over.
I have not witnessed anything as bad as this at the store I usually visit (West University/Houston suburb). I have seen isolated sections looking barren, but I see that at other chains too.
I don’t browse the whole store very often tho; mostly I go for specific items and browse produce and seafood.
I haven’t been to my local store in North Andover, MA in several months, but last time I was there, the shelves were full. I’ll have to ask a coworker tomorrow who shops there regularly to see if she’s noticed a difference in stock on the shelves.
I pop into Whole Foods a few times a week and haven’t noticed this in Ohio but have witnessed via pictures on Instagram (most of those people were in California).
I’m noticing it here in nyc. There’s actually a very large new whole foods in my neighborhood, been open less than a year, and it’s just odd things. Like the bulk bins are perpetually out of several common items like shredded coconut and they haven’t had hemp seeds (more obscure) in the empty bin in a long time. The yogurt section had huge sections of empty shelf space, they were missing any kind of extra firm tofu…
just odd things that didn’t happen in the first few months they were open and certainly had much more foot traffic.
My coworker said she hasn’t noticed huge gaps in the produce or dairy section, but certain ‘spot areas’ would be out. She went in a few weeks ago, and they had no green onions. She notice a few gaps here and there on other shelves, but nothing that she wanted so she didn’t remember what the items were that were missing.
CNBC - WF calls meeting with vendors as tensions flare
I guess this is just part of the problems. I still have not seen anything but random, spot outtages, like I might see at any grocery store.
Oh geez, well seeing as WF is doing such a lousy job with stocking their own shelves it seems counter productive to make this exclusively an internal function. And those fees will certainly be passed on to the customer somehow…