Moving from upmarket to down is also hard to do - witness IBM trying to move to PCs from mainframes, and just today, Nikon trying to make a lower range camera (the DL just got canceled due to massive Nikon losses).
In my view, Whole Foods is losing out because while they stuck to Organic with a capital "O", they forgot about the rest of the things people want. Clearly everyone is different, but a regular grocery store has the luxury of catering to most of those ( low cost, wide variety, close by, _and_ organic). Whole Foods only can offer one of those (currently).
So companies like HEB, which have some very nice grocery stores, can easily shift their product mix to fit the neighborhood they serve. That's a huge advantage, and I don't know how WF can fight them and succeed.
In my view, Whole Foods is losing out because while they stuck to Organic with a capital "O", they forgot about the rest of the things people want. Clearly everyone is different, but a regular grocery store has the luxury of catering to most of those ( low cost, wide variety, close by, _and_ organic). Whole Foods only can offer one of those (currently).
So companies like HEB, which have some very nice grocery stores, can easily shift their product mix to fit the neighborhood they serve. That's a huge advantage, and I don't know how WF can fight them and succeed.