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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what many comments are missing is how self driving cars play into this. Imagine a car goes to the store, pings a helper for the items, drops off the items. Wages are way lower and you have mostly capital cost.
Drops off the items how? A catapult?
More likely you get a text message with an access code and pick your boxes out of the trunk.
Hey here's one of my ideas thrown to HN crowd: Subscription for perishables i.e bread, meat, eggs, fruits and veggies - You shouldn't actually buy things you buy every week, you should just get them shipped!
1. Create a grocery list online, 2. pickup packaged ready-to-go order at local warehouse
Google usually operates in high-margin industries. This is the opposite. I've had the "privilege" of working in this one. You're talking all kinds of players working against each other for perceived self-gain with individual companies constantly pushing costs down to the point their staff can barely break even. And Google intends to compete with that using something with higher cost? Pretty crazy. I was unsurprised t…
I can't wait until the Goog finally builds entire cities, countries and planets. Stop trifling with the details.
* Google Express provides delivery only
* Partner retailers provide "warehousing"
and order picking.
* 3 USD per delivery fee for memebers
* 5 USD per delivery fee for non-members
* 35 USD minimum order
* San Francisco and Los Angeles only, for now.Earlier quoted context omitted.
It certainly does make sense if you're looking at places with expensive property, like London. A supermarket takes up a huge area, and usually in areas where land tends to be expensive. Nobody wants to go to a supermarket in the middle of nowhere. I think that's where online supermarkets are going to win out over conventional supermarkets. Personally, I prefer to go to supermarkets than shop online, even if it was ch…
> A supermarket takes up a huge area, and usually in areas where land tends to be expensive I think this is a particularly good point about their success, especially in London. In London, there aren't really many huge supermarkets (the closest one to me is about 5km away through dense built-up areas), and most people don't own cars. Hence, if you want to do a big shop, online delivery is pretty much the only way.
They're both integrating things from cloud computing to autonomous vehicles, and now to to parcel delivery.
Hey here's one of my ideas thrown to HN crowd: Subscription for perishables i.e bread, meat, eggs, fruits and veggies - You shouldn't actually buy things you buy every week, you should just get them shipped!
here's another idea: 1. Create a grocery list online, 2. pickup packaged ready-to-go order at local warehouse
Google usually operates in high-margin industries. This is the opposite. I've had the "privilege" of working in this one. You're talking all kinds of players working against each other for perceived self-gain with individual companies constantly pushing costs down to the point their staff can barely break even. And Google intends to compete with that using something with higher cost? Pretty crazy. I was unsurprised t…
And Google intends to compete with that using something with higher cost? The UK already has at least one mass-market grocery delivery company that is profitable (albeit barely - a pre-tax profit of £11.9m on sales of £1,202.9m). The CEO, Tim Steiner, believes in the long term they can be more efficient than bricks-and-mortar retailers by having a few large, automated warehouses fulfilling orders for the entire count…
I just checked Pitchbook and in 2014 Ocado has a ~3% EBITDA margin. This is hysterically low for a "technology" company.[0] For reference, Alphabet operates at ~30% EBITDA margin. The problem with food delivery profits is that they are hysterically thin and underpin last-mile problems (specifically in the US where population density is much lower than UK/EU).
Side note - Why the heck are PE ratios so high on the LSE? Ocado is trading at over 220x earnings...