Food for Thought: WholeFoods.com makes a cause of e-commerce.
Promoting social programs while boosting sales may seem incompatible to some, but to Austin, TX-based Whole Foods Markets, Inc., it seemed like a natural match. “There is a tradition with Whole Foods of giving back some of its profits to the communities we serve,” says marketing director John Fischer.
With the launch of its new Web site, WholeFoods.com (April promo), the company’s civic reimbursement strategy plays out in a whole new way. Nonprofit groups such as the Boy Scouts or church organizations can encourage their members to do their online shopping at WholeFoods.com, Fischer says. For-profit enterprises can do the same for their conscientious customers. Whole Foods tracks who the shoppers are and what they buy and, through an arrangement with its affiliates, sends checks worth five percent of gross sales to the participating organizations.
Working Assets, a privately held long-distance telephone and Web services company, is a Whole Foods affiliate committed to “building a world that is more just, humane, and environmentally sustainable.” To help pursue these aims, the company operates a Web site called ShopForChange.com, which links to 40 popular retail vendors, specialty shops, and socially conscious merchants. Working Assets also gives five percent of its gross sales back to humanitarian or nonprofit groups.
The program gives Whole Foods a chance to grow its customer base and still serve the community. Its for-profit affiliates get “unprecedented access to our like-minded customer base. It’s a classic win-win arrangement,” Fischer says.
Whole Foods has 95 bricks-and-mortar stores and 30 more in development. The company had $1.5 billion in revenue last year, according to Fischer.
