Скачать или смотреть FreshDirect founder on how coronavirus is changing grocery shopping

Jason Ackerman, founder and former CEO of FreshDirect, joins "Squawk Alley" to discuss how consumers are changing their shopping habits during the pandemic.

Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait-list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders from existing customers buying food online during the coronavirus outbreak, the company said on Sunday.

Many shoppers recently seeking to purchase groceries from the Seattle-based ​e-commerce company found they could not place orders due to a lack of available delivery slots. Amazon said it would have to relegate all new online grocery customers to a wait-list starting Monday while working on adding capacity each week.

In recent weeks, it increased the number of Whole Foods stores offering grocery pickup ​to more than 150 locations, up from 80 previously.

Amazon ​also plans to shorten some Whole Foods stores’ hours for the public so its employees can more quickly fulfill online grocery orders, the company said.

The moves illustrate how the world’s largest online retailer, which showed its ambition to enter the grocery industry by acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017, is now leveraging its presence both online and in physical stores to handle high demand from consumers who are stuck eating at home, with many restaurant dining rooms closed to the public.

Amazon offers grocery delivery services Amazon Fresh and Amazon Prime Now from its own warehouses and Whole Foods stores. It typically touts ultra-fast delivery within hours, ​with shoppers able to choose a delivery window. Last month, Amazon temporarily suspended the Prime Pantry delivery service, which sells non-perishable groceries.

Amazon said its online grocery order capacity has increased by more than 60% during the outbreak. Some netizens who said they used Amazon Prime, its $119-a-year subscription service for U.S. shoppers, have nevertheless complained on social media about the scarcity of delivery windows.

The company said it is hiring more workers to expand capacity and that it plans to launch a new feature that will help customers secure a virtual “place in line” to distribute the delivery windows on a first-come, first-served basis. It also offered higher pay to encourage its warehouse workers to work for its grocery delivery service.

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