Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 170 posts

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#41

Post by wiremine »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

UK supermarkets are a bit ahead of the curve here. All the large ones have a home delivery service, including Walmart-owned ASDA. It's quite cheap too: £1-6 if you buy £40, for various time slots. They all use their own vehicles and staff, so I suppose Wal-Mart can reduce the risk by using Uber/Lyft. I wonder though, does this mean no active cooling on the way? Can you trust that the ice cream is still frozen when it…

What is the ordering experience like? Do you have a set order that comes on a regular basis? Or are they one-off orders, or a mix?

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#42

Post by ghaff »

eli wrote: post #18
nebulous1 wrote: post #12

I'm torn between wanting somebody to compete with Amazon and it being Walmart

Also Instacart and Google Express and Peapod.

Yes. This is somewhat newsworthy as it's another example of Uber/Lyft's interest in becoming more broadly-based logistics companies. However, grocery delivery already exists. It's just remained something of a niche.

My speculation is that the reason is some combination of "I want to look at the produce," "I don't want to pay $10 for delivery," "I'm just not organized enough to sit down at my computer and input my order," and "I've always just gone to the grocery store."

Personally, I find Walmart to be a mediocre grocery store that I only go to because it's convenient. Given the other options that already exist for me, I would have pretty much zero interest in getting delivery from Walmart. I'd be using Peapod if I wanted it.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#43

Post by mtgx »

jokoon wrote: post #33

Planning in advance could really save a lot of gas, time and money if customers decided to shop online more. The last mile seems like a tough headache in term of logistics, but I'm sure there are many people who would love to not go shopping if it was convenient enough. Although I don't think it will viable at first, so I doubt that market will really grow, since the economies of scale only happen if enough people sh…

It would also reduce traffic in cities.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#44

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Isn't this a bit going the wrong way somehow?

Growing up, mom went grocery shopping once every 2 weeks. We'd load up 2 or 3 shopping carts that filled 8 or 10 grocery bags.

One auto trip every 2 weeks for groceries.

With all the delivery services for restaurants, groceries, and more and more sundries, the trips to my house are made for less and less 'stuff' per trip. More trips per household obviously means more gasoline burned.

With Amazon or FedEx, at least it's a truck on a route with several dozen deliveries to make. But this Uber/Lyft scheme looks to likely be 1, maybe 2, deliveries per trip.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#45

Post by goatforce5 »

pm215 wrote: post #29
lujim wrote: post #9

This is going to take a bit of magic to pull off. Groceries are very low margin items and people just opt for pre-made restaurant food when we are feeling lazy. When I'm motivated enough to prepare my own food I'm motivated enough to go to the grocery store. This is the domain of driver-less delivery vehicles of whatever kind.

UK experience suggests there's a decent market for delivered groceries: these stats ( http://www.igd.com/Research/Shopper-Insight/Pushing-online-s... ) from 2015 say that 11% of shoppers used online-shopping-with-delivery for their main shop, and 26% had used it at least once in the past month. So there is a decent demand there willing to pay delivery charges that can sustain a with-human-driver style delivery servic…

I worked with a guy who used to work at the head office of a Canadian grocery chain.

Apparently the grocery shopping habits of UK/European consumers is considerably different than North Americans and so something that works in one market doesn't necessarily translate across the Atlantic.

In the UK, my old supermarket had a couple of aisles of prepared chilled meals. Lots of variety, and a lot of it was pretty good quality. You just don't get that in North America, and apparently it's because NA consumers tend to go to the grocery store once per week, where in the UK it's multiple times per week. So over here the convenience meals are frozen and icky. Blurgh!

Similarly, I could imagine the economics of delivery would be vastly different. The UK has tightly packed cities with high population density, meaning your delivery vehicles don't have far to go between stops. NA has large spread out suburbs with lots of driving to get anywhere...

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#46

Post by mtmail »

dragonwriter wrote: post #37
k-mcgrady wrote: post #27

I'm always surprised grocery delivery is still a big deal in the US. All the major supermarkets in the UK do home delivery, next day, for a £3-5 delivery fee. You can go the site, fill your basket, and checkout. You also get a 1-2 hour delivery slot so you don't have to wait at home all day. We also have Amazon Prime Now doing grocery delivery within 1 hour in some cities. I can see how it would be a problem in some…

So do a number of US groceries, either independently or through a service, including Google Express (or both.) And we had Prime Now first.

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan as early as 1996.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#47

Post by agmcleod »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #44

Isn't this a bit going the wrong way somehow? Growing up, mom went grocery shopping once every 2 weeks. We'd load up 2 or 3 shopping carts that filled 8 or 10 grocery bags. One auto trip every 2 weeks for groceries. With all the delivery services for restaurants, groceries, and more and more sundries, the trips to my house are made for less and less 'stuff' per trip. More trips per household obviously means more gaso…

How did you guys keep vegetables fresh for 2 weeks? That's usually why i go a couple times a week. Usually buy a pack of meat to have for a few nights of dinner, vegetables to use as well. Then get more once it's used up.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#48

Post by bluedino »

lujim wrote: post #9

This is going to take a bit of magic to pull off. Groceries are very low margin items and people just opt for pre-made restaurant food when we are feeling lazy. When I'm motivated enough to prepare my own food I'm motivated enough to go to the grocery store. This is the domain of driver-less delivery vehicles of whatever kind.

We have a local place that does your grocery shopping for you but they charge a markup of 20-25%. That seems like a lot at first, but for $40 worth of groceries I'm only spending $10 to not have to drive to and from the store, and walk around for 30 minutes collecting items. Saves me an hour total or 45 minutes on the way home from work.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#49

Post by martin-adams »

wiremine wrote: post #41
TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

UK supermarkets are a bit ahead of the curve here. All the large ones have a home delivery service, including Walmart-owned ASDA. It's quite cheap too: £1-6 if you buy £40, for various time slots. They all use their own vehicles and staff, so I suppose Wal-Mart can reduce the risk by using Uber/Lyft. I wonder though, does this mean no active cooling on the way? Can you trust that the ice cream is still frozen when it…

What is the ordering experience like? Do you have a set order that comes on a regular basis? Or are they one-off orders, or a mix?

As someone who has used Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco and Ocado. There is much room for improvement in the ordering process. Ocado are the best, but they are expensive.

Sainsburys pulled their dedicated app and you have to use the crappy mobile web.

Re: Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft

#50

Post by bluedino »

I would pay a small premium for a 'pick up at store' service like I can at some retailers. Buy the item online, go to the store, go to the customer service counter and pickup the your purchases.

Imagine just going to the grocery store drive-through and picking up your groceries that you've chosen beforehand.

Post reply on HN