Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market in 2017 and became a major force in online retail.
Amazon announced the acquisition of Whole Foods Market in June 2017 and completed it later that year in a deal valued at about $13.7 billion. Whole Foods gave Amazon a large physical grocery-store network and strengthened its position in food delivery and retail logistics.
Amazon began as an online bookseller founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It expanded into general merchandise, cloud computing through Amazon Web Services, digital media, advertising, and physical retail. AWS became an especially important contributor to the company’s operating performance.
The Whole Foods purchase is sometimes described as Amazon’s entry into groceries, but Amazon had already operated grocery initiatives before the deal. The acquisition broadened its physical presence rather than creating the category from nothing.