Do Whole Foods Employees Get Amazon Prime?

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Whole Foods Market is one of the great places to work and has many benefits for its employees. We know Whole Foods got bought by Amazon, so do Whole Foods employees get Amazon Prime?

No. Whole Foods employees do not get Amazon Prime. However, they get many other benefits. For example, Whole Foods employees enjoy a special employee discount on purchases, up to 30%. Full-time employees also get health insurance, paid time off, and a 401k plan.

But you might also be interested to know the other kind of benefits the Whole Foods employees enjoy.

Also, do part-time, and full-time employees get equal access to these employment benefits? I will help you know it all. 

Employee benefits are one of the areas I am highly qualified to write about because, for over twenty years, I was a general manager at Whole Foods Market, although I left the company shortly before Amazon bought them.

You could say that I know a thing or two about them, and you’ll be right. Truth be told, we can’t exhaust all that we could learn about them. But I’ll make sure I cover most of what you’ll like to know.

Let’s get started by considering an interesting question.

Can I get Amazon Prime for free as a Whole Foods employee?

No, you cannot get Amazon Prime for free as a Whole Foods employee. You do get other benefits, but Amazon Prime is not part of these.

By the way, what’s Amazon Prime?

It is a video streaming service for Amazon Prime members. Members can access thousands of videos at no extra charge. They can also rent or buy movies or T.V. episodes and also subscribe to over 100 premium channels.

Amazon Prime members also get 10% off items they buy and receive discounts (each week) on best-selling products.

They’ll need the Whole Foods app to take advantage of this. It’ll be scanned at checkout.

Prime members, in any part of America, also enjoy one-day free delivery on over 10 million items (with no minimum order). They simply need to filter by “get it tomorrow” as they shop on the app, and what they bought will be delivered before or by 9 pm the next day.

It’s $119 per year or $12.99 per month.

But do Whole Foods Market employees who also happen to be Amazon Prime members get both discounts??

No. Unfortunately, you don’t get to stack the employee discount on top of the Prime discount. You could, however, in some cases, find a Prime deal that is actually cheaper than just using the employee discount. 

And if a Whole Foods employee happens to have an Amazon Prime credit card you can use the 5% cashback on top of the employee discount.

As a Whole Foods employee, you might be interested in knowing what’s a Grocery Team Member.

As I mentioned earlier, I worked at Whole Foods for over twenty years and started in Grocery. I worked my way up to Grocery Team Leader before moving into store leadership.

And, that’s exactly what I did in a recent article of mine.

I explained what a Grocery Team Member is, how grocery stores are laid out, how much they are paid. I shared how much they get paid, and the skills required, and if they are required to work overnight. Just click the link to read it on my site.

Next, we’ll look at another interesting and reasonable question. Would you get discounts when you shop on Amazon?

Do Whole Foods employees get an Amazon discount? 

No, Whole Foods employees do not get a discount on purchases they make on Amazon.com. And Amazon employees do not get a discount at Whole Foods stores.

Amazon indeed owns Whole Foods (the behemoth bought it in 2017).

While it seems like a natural that Whole Foods Market employees would get their 20-30% employee discount at their new boss’s website, Amazon, that is not likely going to happen.

For starters, most WFM employees probably already shop on Amazon, so by giving up 20% or more of those purchases, it could potentially cut significantly into Amazon’s profits.

If you know anything about Amazon whatsoever, you know that maintaining a healthy profit margin is one of the top goals. And if they did offer that benefit, there would be cutbacks elsewhere in the employee benefits package.

But, the companies do not have one singular, uniform policy. In the next section, I’ll share some of the benefits Whole Foods employees are entitled to.

Does Whole Foods have an employee discount?

Yes, Whole Foods have an employee discount. Whole Foods Market has long offered a 20% discount on purchases to its employees. And, after an employee completes six months at the job, there’s an opportunity to increase it to 30%.

The discounts cover products and services used every day.

There’s even a dedicated website where employees can find such discounts on:

  • Tires
  • Movies
  • Cell phones
  • Prescriptions
  • Travels
  • Insurance
  • and theme parks

It’s vital to stress that some of these discounts can also be enjoyed by the family and friends of employees. 

Do only full-time Whole Foods employees get benefits?

No. All Whole Foods employees get the 20% discount in addition to many other benefits such as the 401k plan and paid time off. However, medical benefits are only eligible for full-time employees.

Full-time employees are ones who work more than 30 hours per week.

Part-time employees constitute just about 2% of the company’s workforce. Whole Foods has about 95,000 employees; as such, the elimination will affect just about 1,900 people. (source)

Now let’s look at the benefits that Whole Food employees get.  

  1. Health and Insurance Benefits
  2. Financial and Retirement Benefits
  3. Vacation and paid time off
  4. Team member purchase program (Whole Foods offers discounts to employees through its relationships with other companies

The benefits are awesome if you ask me. Sadly when Amazon bought them, they did eliminate the stock option program which I benefitted from significantly over the years when I worked there.

So, you might be wondering, what are the skills required to work in a grocery store?

Luckily, you can find all the pertinent details in a recent article of mine. In it, I explored the different positions in a grocery store, what checkers do, what stockers do, what the pay’s like, if you need previous experience, skills, and mindset needed to work in a grocery store. And I concluded by sharing some of the best paying and the lowest paying stores.

Just click the link to read it on my site.

You’ve probably heard of Amazon’s discount code. Does it work for Whole Foods employees? Let’s find out next.

How does the Amazon discount code work for Whole Foods employees?

Whole Foods employees do not get the Amazon discount code, though the code works for Amazon employees. In addition to receiving $100 per year at the beginning of the year, Amazon employees get 10% off items sold and shipped by Amazon. 

This discount is one of the awesome things most Amazon employees love about working at the company.

But there are many different kinds of Amazon employees, and not everyone gets this discount code. For example, seasonal employees, also known as white badge employees, aren’t eligible.

Blue Badge Amazon employees are full-time. They can get their Amazon Discount Code by logging into the employee portal and getting their 16-digit promo code from their profile page.

From all that we’ve been exploring, it’s obvious that a grocery store or a supermarket is an awesome place to work.

But what are the different sections and positions in a grocery store, so that you’ll choose the one you’ll really fit in? That’s what I covered in a recent article of mine.

Just click the link to read it on my site. 

Final Thoughts

In the preceding paragraphs, I covered a lot of ground.

I shared what Amazon Prime entails, the benefits it offers, such as access to a huge collection of movies and T.V.episodes. This awesome entertainment feast covers many genres.

I shared the fact that Whole Foods Market employees do not have Amazon Prime as a part of their benefits.

I also shared some info about some of the benefits for Whole Foods Employees. There’s the main one’s health, retirement, and vacation.

Note, however, that part-time employees — those who work for less than 30 hours per week, do not get medical coverage.

But, the favorite benefit of employees is that they get 20% off. On the whole,  the benefits offered by Whole Foods are not shabby at all. They’re actually one of the best in the industry.

Photos which require attribution:

Amazon Prime Video by Stock Catalog and Social Media Week: Whole Foods Market presents: Afternoon Snack – A New York New Food Media Panel by David Berkowitz are licensed under CC2.0

Jeff Campbell
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