Had a guy in my store this morning for about 45 minutes wandering around and taking pictures. I assumed he was a mystery shopper or an auditor. Turns out he represented a company I had never heard of. He said to go to relentless.com and things would become clearer. So I did.
Wow....rumors must have some basis in fact.
Amazon bought Whole Foods because it needed a pre built distribution system for its food division. It has no interest in a struggling auto parts store in an industry that desperately needs consolidation. People need to stop dreaming of buyouts by Wal-Mart and Amazon. They don't need Advance and would both benefit if Advance just went out of business.
He's probably just messing with you. Relentless.com was what Amazon was almost named and the domain was registered by Jeff Bezos before Amazon was chosen as the name and became the behemoth it is today.
Although, if Amazon can buy Whole Foods, and sees value in that brick n mortar space, they can definitely buy a struggling parts retailer and apply a similar strategy.