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Article snippet: Shares of Walmart, Target, Kroger and Costco, the largest grocery retailers, all tumbled on Friday. And no wonder. Grocery stores have spent the last several years fighting against online and overseas entrants. But now, with its $13.4 billion purchase of Amazon has effectively started a supermarket war. Armed with giant warehouses, shopper data, the latest technology and nearly endless funds — and now with Whole Foods’ hundreds of physical stores — Amazon is poised to reshape an $800 billion grocery market that is already undergoing many changes. And much of the battle is expected to take place online, Amazon’s home turf. “This shows that online is going to be very dominant in the grocery business — and very quickly,” said Errol Schweizer, a former Whole Foods executive. The grocery business is facing a slew of upstart companies trying to figure out how to make a business of getting food on the kitchen table. Instacart delivers food from grocery stores to doorsteps, while FreshDirect delivers from its own warehouse. Blue Apron delivers boxes of food packaged to make meals. In addition, Lidl and Aldi, two European discount grocers, have recently announced enormous expansions in the United States. Aldi plans to invest $3.4 billion to grow from 1,600 stores to 2,500 stores by 2022, while Lidl, which recently opened a handful of locations, plans to operate 100 by the middle of next year. They are taking on a handful of major companies that have dominated the grocery ... Link to the full article to read more