Go to Whole Foods for Organic Tomatoes, Come Home With a Tattoo
You can buy just about anything at Walmart, but one thing you can’t get there – at least yet – is a tattoo. If you want to buy groceries and get ink, you’ll have to go to…Whole Foods!
The natural grocery chain really wants to attract millennials, so it’s considering adding tattoo parlors to its lower-cost Whole Foods 365 locations set to open later this year. And you might be able to grab a healthy beverage from the fresh-pressed juice stand to satiate you while you get tatted, Whole Foods announced last recently.
The company says on a website dedicated to the 365 stores that it wants to partner with start-ups as well as established brands across a variety of categories to help enhance the 365 experience. Whole Foods refers to these partnerships as “Friends of 365.”
The supermarket chain has advertised it is on the hunt for suppliers:
“from food and drinks to fashion, body care products, services, and more”
“Whether you’re into fast-casual food service, breakthrough retail (body care products, clothing, shoes, housewares, pet, etc.) or cool street services (barber shop, knife sharpening, bike shop, fitness) – if you’ve got a thriving business ready to go all the way live, we want to hear from you.”
Read: Whole Foods Hopes to Draw more Consumers with Lower Prices
Fox News reports that 365 vendors could include a bone-broth seller, a Bulletproof coffee café, and a Jelt stand (belts made of recycled yarn that grip pants with a gel lining).
These hipster stores will hopefully make up for a 2% drop in sales at Whole Foods locations open for more than a year, and overall sluggish sales throughout the company.
Many of the products sold at Whole Foods can be purchased elsewhere at a far lower price, such as big box discount grocers like Aldi, and even run-of-the-mill supermarkets, which is why the company is launching the 365 locations.
“There’s a number of smaller-store competitors out there that are doing a nice job,” said Walter Robb, Whole Foods’ co-chief executive officer. “We don’t see any reason why we can’t go participate in that part of the market.”
Co-CEO John Mackey has vowed to increase discounts, but a January survey found that 7 out of 10 Whole Foods shoppers hadn’t noticed a difference in pricing during the past 3 months.
Sources:
I don’t know about this. What’s the point of shopping for healthy food if you’re going to get a load of carcinogenic pigment chemicals injected into your lymphatic system on the way out of the store? I guess from a corporate perspective, this could create repeat consumers coming back for skin care products.