Buying Whole Foods could complete an Amazon ecosystem a decade in the making

From a shopper's standpoint, building a grocery list via voice assistant is a lot more impactful than asking Alexa to buy, say, a pair of sneakers. Interacting with Alexa--be it through the Dash Wand, an Echo device, or Amazon app--could become as natural an experience as saying "Honey, we need eggs." The key difference: When you say that to Amazon, the eggs could just arrive. On the backend, Amazon has been developing an infrastructure to support such an enterprise for years. The Seattle company has deals with many delivery contractors, and also runs a network of independent "gig" couriers through a program called Amazon Flex.