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Online retail giant Amazon announced it is acquiring Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion.
Utpal Dholakia, a marketing professor at Rice University, said Whole Foods has been facing pressure from investors to increase profits.
"The basis of comparison is kind of unfair, because many of these activist investors have investments in other industries which have much higher profit margins,” he said.
Stock prices slumped for Wal-Mart, Kroger and Houston-based Sysco.
Dholakia said some Houston supermarkets aren't likely to follow Amazon and Whole Foods online.
"Their customers, for the products and services that they're selling, do not really value online shopping,” he said.
Whole Foods set up shop in Houston in 1984, making it the first store outside of Austin. The company says that John Mackey will stay on as CEO and Whole Foods headquarters will remain in Texas.