Futubull learned that Amazon (AMZN.US) said on Wednesday that the company is testing adding mini robot warehouses at Whole Foods to attract more shoppers to its stores, away from other grocery competitors.

The company is building a mini distribution center near a Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Once the facility is operational next year, shoppers will be able to order items from the Amazon website and its online grocery service Amazon Fresh while browsing Whole Foods, and pick them up in-store at checkout.

At a press conference near the Amazon warehouse in Nashville, Anand Varadarajan, head of Amazon's global grocery business product and technology team, displayed a model of the completed facility. A small automated warehouse will be attached to Whole Foods, where robots will pick up and transport items such as socks, soda bottles, or tennis rackets, and place them in bags for shoppers to retrieve.

This setup will allow shoppers to purchase essential items from brands not sold at Whole Foods, such as Pepsico and Kellanova cereals, and take advantage of Amazon's vast online product catalog.

Amazon stated that it hopes to "eliminate" shoppers' "extra trips" to other grocery stores. According to market research company Drive Research's study in April, Americans, on average, shop at two different grocery stores per week, either to save costs, buy more products, or benefit from each store's different promotions.

Varadarajan said in a speech on Wednesday: "Customers shopping at Whole Foods today are looking for natural and organic products. However, our data shows that many of them still go to other stores for their regular grocery shopping needs. Through our mini distribution centers, we can reduce the need for customers to visit multiple stores or place multiple online orders."

For many years, Amazon has been committed to gaining a larger share in the grocery market. This is a category that Americans often spend money on, exceeding other vertical industries such as outfits or electronic products. However, Amazon also faces fierce competition from old-school enterprises like Walmart (WMT.US), Kroger (KR.US), Albertsons Companies (ACI.US), and regional grocery stores.

In 2017, the company spent 13.7 billion US dollars to acquire Whole Foods, a purchase price that was more than 10 times higher than any of Amazon's previous transactions. The company has also introduced more and more grocery services, including grocery delivery services and its own chain supermarket Amazon Fresh, to target the mass market.

Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy also stated that the business of selling 'daily essentials' such as paper towels and detergents is growing.