Amazon announced on Friday that it will acquire upscale food market chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, giving the online retail giant a stronger foothold into the grocery business. The move is a strategic one for both companies: It comes amidst financial struggles at the organic food market while also boosting Amazon’s brick-and-mortar presence. Here’s a closer look at why the purchase makes sense.

A bigger physical retail footprint for Amazon

Amazon revolutionized online shopping with the launch of its website in 1995, but in recent years it’s showed increasing interest in having a similar impact on the physical retail experience. Last year, the shopping behemoth unveiled Amazon Go, an experimental grocery store with no checkout counter that’s currently open to Amazon employees in Seattle. Amazon also opened its first brick-and-mortar book store in Seattle in 2015, and has since expanded to New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The company is said to be weighing numerous physical retail experiments that range from futuristic Home- Depot-like stores that incorporate augmented reality to Apple-esque electronics boutiques, according to The New York Times. Amazon’s acquisition gives the company 431 physical Whole Foods locations to potentially flesh out new concepts.

More fulfillment centers means quicker delivery

Amazon’s Prime Now service promises to deliver certain products — ranging from paper towels to electronics — in an hour or less, which Amazon sources from 70 fulfillment centers in the U.S. With its purchase of Whole Foods and the hundreds of grocery stores it operates — which sell everything from fresh food to beer, bakery items, flowers, and pet supplies — Amazon has an opportunity to expand the products it can deliver under Prime Now. This is particularly useful for Amazon considering that the food options in Prime Now have been limited to gourmet markets like D’Agostino and Billy’s Bakery in Manhattan.

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