Amazon doesnt make a profit according to their own accounting, and Whole Foods was created with debt. Using profits from one to service the debts on the other isn't the kind of thing a billionaire would do and it isnt what institutional investors would want to see. Either Bezos has backers willing to lose money or he is making side money off the books.
In the first case bankers would want to consolidate all markets as that raises their leverage. Its possible. His backers might prefer a small loss to tons of completion across all industries trying to sell Americans plastic Chinese shit.
The other possibility is that the combination of the two methods of distribution for Whole Foods and Amazon, plus Bezos ownership of Amazon lockers is an attempt to create a safe ecosystem for large drug cartels to distribute cocaine, heroin, and other illegal products to street dealers for completely anonymous transactions.
You look at the small details that don't make sense on their own. Why does Amazon tolerate so many fraudulent stores? Why spend capital on a low margin, but risk heavy business like anonymous lockers? Why put so much effort into an employee base that is not interested in knowing what products are being sold?
The government isn't interested in cartels, its how Bezos can continue to operate, they want the small fish. From what it looks like, he has a distribution system that spans the country. The sellers are anonymous and have zero standards. The employees do not have time to check their inventory for contraband.
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Putzmiester ago
Amazon doesnt sell anything. They are pure profit, as they dont own any of the products on their site. They get at least half of all the profits from every sale, everyday. Everything purchased on amazon is property of the seller until the seller sells it.
They also have a sweetheart deal with USPS where they pay $3 bucks minimum on each package, then the seller has to buy that from amazon for about $7. They did nothing in that process, and this happens hundreds of thousands of times a da if not millions.
They also get "premium sellers" to give them something like $50 a week just to rank higher in the sellers queue.
I bet you are right that they not only sell drugs, but likely everything else you can think of in their massive network.