But Houdini was the relatively easy part. Copperfield, the initiative to sell affiliated grocery store products online for the stores, was arguably the more important initiative; people didn’t mind waiting a few days for Beats headphones or a pair of slippers, but they usually wanted their groceries right away. Seeking a partnership, Prime Now executives and their counterparts in Amazon’s business development group visited the headquarters of Kroger in Cincinnati, Safeway in Pleasanton, California, and Gelson’s Markets in Los Angeles. The grocers were all afraid of Amazon, indifferent to Prime
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