Amazon remains committed to innovating in grocery delivery, payment

SEATTLE — Don’t expect Amazon to stop experimenting with cashier-less grocery stores anytime soon.

 

Despite announcing in June it would acquire Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, the online giant will continue evolving its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go concepts, among other efforts. Its goal: to reinvent the way consumers shop for food, according to Business Insider.

 

According to the report, Amazon officials said the company is still determining how customers want to shop for groceries. Until they learn which solutions make sense, Amazon has no plans to shut down any of its current experiments in grocery sales and delivery.

 

“We'll see how the customers respond. We believe there will be no one solution,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's chief financial officer, said on the company’s second quarter earnings call.

 

The online giant experienced big sales for the quarter, but they weren't enough to offset a big drop in earnings. Net income for the second quarter, ended June 30, was $197 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, compared with net income of $857 million, or $1.78 per diluted share, in second quarter 2016. Earnings also drastically missed analyst expectations of $1.42 per share, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.

 

Net sales climbed 25% to $38.0 billion, compared with $30.4 billion in the second quarter of 2016. Excluding the $502 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 26% compared with second quarter 2016.

 

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