![]() She was handpicked for Prime Now by Dave Clark, the top retail boss, after she created a membership program geared toward expectant mothers that impressed leadership. It was being run by Landry, who had served as a shadow advisor to Jeff Wilke, Bezos' right-hand man. The algorithm didn't adjust to recognize that Halloween was approaching.īy the time Fresh launched outside Seattle, opening a Los Angeles operation in 2013, Prime Now was on the horizon and would soon pose a challenge from the inside.įresh had been around for six years, but Prime Now had a distinct advantage. One time Amazon ended up ordering a bunch of life-sized horsehead masks, after the algorithm flagged them as the city's top toy. The software didn't always work as intended. Leigh built an algorithm that identified top-selling items in Seattle, thinking it could improve Fresh's general merchandise assortment. It could be a pair of headphones or a last-minute birthday gift. One idea was to steer grocery shoppers toward higher-priced items in other categories. "There was a real interest and desire to expand." "We had been working on Fresh for three years at that point and we hadn't gotten the model profitable," Leigh said. Having worked in Amazon's media, grocery and gourmet and baby categories, Leigh was on maternity leave in 2010 when she was brought back to help Fresh make money so it could grow beyond Seattle. The Fresh delivery service had been around since 2007, when longtime executive Doug Herrington, a former vice president at dot-com grocery flameout Webvan, launched an initiative to drive fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and milk in temperature-controlled tote bags to some residents in the Seattle suburb of Mercer Island.Īndrea Leigh remembers the early days of the grind, trying to make it in the low-margin business. They were told to prepare for a "bake-off" that would determine the path forward for the company's online grocery business, according to people familiar with the matter. Prime NowĪmazon leadership summoned Stephenie Landry, who ran Prime Now, and Ben Hartman, head of Amazon Fresh, to the company's Seattle headquarters. It's also created chaos and a lack of clear direction.Īmazon declined to provide commentary on the record for this story or make any executives available for interviews. Part of that is intentional, as Bezos fostered a workplace of competing ideas. They portrayed an environment of intense internal competition for resources and said culture clashes ensued when groups came together. ![]() Most of the people who agreed to be interviewed did so on condition that they not be named because they weren't authorized to speak about their experiences or they feared retribution from the company. With Jassy now plotting the road ahead for Amazon and its disjointed portfolio of high-cost grocery assets, CNBC talked with insiders and former employees about how the company got to this point and where it goes from here. Meanwhile, Instacart, Uber, DoorDash and Gopuff are throwing money at speedy delivery, Amazon's sweet spot. Entrenched players such as Walmart, Target, Kroger and Albertsons are getting savvier with digital offerings, thanks to the pandemic jolt. "It's almost like the grocery business is an expensive hobby."Ĭompetition is everywhere. "Amazon's all about the cloud, e-commerce and entertainment," said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management, which has counted Amazon has a "core holding" since 2011. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices Copyright S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and/or its affiliates. Standard & Poor’s and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Chicago Mercantile: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. ![]() US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. Your CNN account Log in to your CNN account ![]()
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