Milestones

With the recent acquisition of WholeFoods, and the rumours around the potential meal-delivery service that could follow, Amazon is positioning itself as one of the largest, most forward-looking companies in the world. It wants to sell not only books and retail products but use its primer delivery service to become the platform where customers can literally access anything. The idea, as far as I can see, is the encompass all posible necessary purchases from any client into a simple, digital service.

By buying WholeFoods, it suddenly feels like any food retailer might want to re-think their business plan for the coming years. It is simply not off the table for Amazon to start taking on Blue Apron or even large supermarket chains as the primary food delivery service. And with the logistics and operational set up as it is, Blue Apron might be able to survive with its current customers but one can only feel like any new customer looking for ready-made meals would simply use the Amazon service versus using a company that they have never used.

I myself, due to the recent stay in Spain, would simply use my prime service to get food delivered instead of searching for a local supermarket or other delivery company that could provide the service.

Now this might all be true in Europe and the US, But I am not convinced that the same applies to Asia. The local population is still a few years away being technologically savvy enough and have enough cash on hand to use such a service. I think iCare Benefits for example can bridge that gap.

We are trying to become, similarly to Amazon, a platform where our customers can purchase anything that they might need. We have been selling food product for over a year and we even sell more complicated products like insurance and vaccines. So I do feel like in a way we are one step further than Amazon.

And who knows, they might come knocking one day…