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Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

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Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#141

Post by nickpsecurity »

Retric wrote: post #139
nickpsecurity wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good ones are all 2-5%. Anything below that is underperforming, a no-frills shop (eg dollar store), or trying to crush competition with a growth strategy. In any case, talking to people that work at most of them show they barely function if they're near 2%. We must also note that this is the final profit. That's after executives, shareholders, employees, real estate, etc have been paid. The markup over the price…

"According to a paper published by the CDFI Fund, the average profit margin for the supermarket industry was 1.9 percent in 2010. The profit margin varies by sub-classification. According to analysis of Yahoo! Finance data, the average net profit margin for publicly traded US-based grocery stores for 2012 is close to 2010's 1.9 percent average. Sagework's research shows that privately owned grocers had average profit…

Key phrase: " the average net profit margin"

The abuse of statistics is rampant. An average tells you either what the middle player makes or is only used to identify trends. The average means nothing for individual players. An average of 1.9 might mean one company makes about nothing with many making 2-3% or a bunch of companies around 1.9. Btw, Kroger is one using an aggressive growth strategy to undercut competition. Their stores stay having empty shelves around ehre. They own Harris Teeter, too. Safeway went bankrupt at that rate. So, what are these numbers proving again? ;)

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#142

Post by mentat »

mc32 wrote: post #25
Outdoorsman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article they're simply entering the "delivery" market...picking up items from retail stores and transporting them to willing buyers...obviously a markup is implied...the cost of convenience... There's no holding of inventory...thus no storage-related overhead... When I was in college one of the jobs I had was at a combination "feed" mill/agri-center...the boss was 85 years old and made a speech each year whe…

There have been many players in this market, old and new. And when you don't have warehouses to automate and extract efficiency, you need people to do the picking. It takes me quite some time to do my own shopping, knowing my store's layout, knowing what I want in advance. I only see low, low margins. I mean, this is the opposite of self-checkout efficiency. They're putting more people into to the cost of the product…

They don't do the picking, the store does for them. I'm pretty sure they're using similar methods to whatever the online ordering for in store pickup uses so it's probably not being pulled from shelves in most cases either. Google most definitely is not sending their own people into the store to pick things up.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#143

Post by cubano »

skyyler wrote: post #113
JPKab wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Additionally, this decision by Google to jump into this game has now completely screwed a big project I was working on. How? I work with retail data on behalf of large companies, and companies like Walmart and Target don't want any of the point of sale or inventory feeds they provide to their suppliers hosted on cloud infrastructure owned by a competitor. In the past, this meant absolutely no Amazon options f…

So Google should consult you before they take on a new product, just to make sure you're ok with it?

While it made me laugh, isn't snark like this often buried here on HN?

Just wondering.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#144

Post by JPKab »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #127
JPKab wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Additionally, this decision by Google to jump into this game has now completely screwed a big project I was working on. How? I work with retail data on behalf of large companies, and companies like Walmart and Target don't want any of the point of sale or inventory feeds they provide to their suppliers hosted on cloud infrastructure owned by a competitor. In the past, this meant absolutely no Amazon options f…

That's an angle I didn't think about. Just switch to one of the other clouds like DO that's unlikely to compete on that. Also, keep your stuff provider agnostic where possible. Stuff can always happen.

Of course. Not an issue to move it, just really wanted to stay on Google Cloud. I actually like some of the stuff on there.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#145

Post by dragonwriter »

fs111 wrote: post #110

They do the alphabet-rename thing to better split things into different brands, yet this is attached to the Google brand. How does that make any sense?

> They do the alphabet-rename thing to better split things into different brands, yet this is attached to the Google brand.

Because this is a new feature of Google Express, which was part of the established core Google business when the Google/Alphabet split happened, not one of the pre-existing non-core things broken out into Alphabet or a new venture by Alphabet post-reorganization.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#146

Post by JPKab »

skyyler wrote: post #113
JPKab wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Additionally, this decision by Google to jump into this game has now completely screwed a big project I was working on. How? I work with retail data on behalf of large companies, and companies like Walmart and Target don't want any of the point of sale or inventory feeds they provide to their suppliers hosted on cloud infrastructure owned by a competitor. In the past, this meant absolutely no Amazon options f…

So Google should consult you before they take on a new product, just to make sure you're ok with it?

Of course not. I won't have a hard time moving my stuff, although I would have preferred to stay on Google.

I was a bit pissed off when I wrote the original comment due to this unexpected twist. Obviously not their fault, but it sucks that the two most viable cloud providers are now both in the fucking retail world.

Honestly, I love Google, and just wish they would TRY to focus a bit before branching out into anything and everything. My main gripe is that I don't think they will AT ALL succeed in grocery delivery. It's complicated and requires focus.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#147

Post by dragonwriter »

joelrunyon wrote: post #4

What's Google's USP here? This service sounds like everything Google that Google goes at great lengths to avoid (physical products, customer service, etc).

> This service sounds like everything Google that Google goes at great lengths to avoid (physical products, customer service, etc).

Google Express (for which this is simply a new feature) does all those things, and its something Google has been expanding; its simply false that Google goes great lengths to avoid them.

And its an essential feature to compete with Amazon's offering that competes with Google Express.

The main Google/Amazon differentiator -- the unique selling point Google has compared to others in the similar space -- is that Google aggregates existing retailers who have unique inventory, customer relations, etc., and preserves those for customers, while Amazon acts as a single separate retailer (essentially, Google's USP is that it preserves the member retailers USPs that aren't tied directly to the physical retail location.)

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

JPKab wrote: post #109
nickpsecurity wrote: post #27

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…

Agreed. Additionally, this decision by Google to jump into this game has now completely screwed a big project I was working on. How? I work with retail data on behalf of large companies, and companies like Walmart and Target don't want any of the point of sale or inventory feeds they provide to their suppliers hosted on cloud infrastructure owned by a competitor. In the past, this meant absolutely no Amazon options f…

>I work with retail data on behalf of large companies, and companies like Walmart and Target don't want any of the point of sale or inventory feeds they provide to their suppliers hosted on cloud infrastructure owned by a competitor.

Target isn't a competitor to Google Express, in fact, Target is one of Google's retailer partners in Google Express.

(Walmart isn't really a competitor to Google Express, either, since they don't do an aggregate-and-deliver service like Google Express, but it isn't a partner, either, and a number of their competitors are partners, so I suppose there might be some way they see the service as making Google a competitor.)

Anyhow, to the extent that this is a problem, Google Express has been around for a few years, the only thing new is fresh grocery delivery instead of just dry goods. So, to the extent there is a problem with companies "like Walmart and Target" seeing this kind of aggregate-and-deliver service as a competitor their retail business that makes then not want their data hosted on Google's cloud, your "big project" has been "completely screwed" since Google Shopping Express (its original name) launched in 2013.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

Outdoorsman wrote: post #22
joelrunyon wrote: post #4

What's Google's USP here? This service sounds like everything Google that Google goes at great lengths to avoid (physical products, customer service, etc).

From the article they're simply entering the "delivery" market...picking up items from retail stores and transporting them to willing buyers...obviously a markup is implied...the cost of convenience... There's no holding of inventory...thus no storage-related overhead... When I was in college one of the jobs I had was at a combination "feed" mill/agri-center...the boss was 85 years old and made a speech each year whe…

> From the article they're simply entering the "delivery" market...

Rather, they are expanding the delivery service they launched 3 years ago to include groceries.

They aren't just entering the delivery market.

Re: Google Launches Fresh-Grocery Deliveries

#150

Post by dragonwriter »

yoz-y wrote: post #66
dannyr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what if they sunset this service? The worst thing that could happen is you go back to going physically to the store to buy groceries. It's not like you won't have the ability to buy groceries if the service stops. I personally like that companies like Google are trying out different things.

This should not be a Google product, they have Google Ventures to support somebody else to do it. Google has a trillion of rotting product they keep pushing out and then killing. Problem with any of these Google side projects is that they come in with a huge cash reserve so they are not playing on a level field with other companies that would like to do something similar. Then, when they leave, it leaves us with a ba…

> This should not be a Google product

This is an added feature for Google Express, which is an established Google offering.

Google Express was an outgrowth of Google Shopping (originally, it was "Google Shopping Express"), which was an established Google offering.

Google Shopping was an outgrowth of Google Search, which is the most core Google offering there is.

Why, again, should this not be a Google product?

> Problem with any of these Google side projects is that they come in with a huge cash reserve so they are not playing on a level field with other companies that would like to do something similar.

Um. Too bad? (And, really, that's not all that different to VC backed startups position. So, if your complaint is that VC backed startups shouldn't be allowed to compete with, e.g., bootstrapped small businesses, well, at least that would consistently applying the principal that is implied in your complaint. But I still think that's a bit silly, even then.)

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