Wal-Mart Plans to Test Grocery Delivery Through Uber, Lyft • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

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…

The main psychological barrier is that it takes surprisingly long to choose groceries online, almost as long as walking around the store

I think this is part of why I don't get food delivered; I'm quite close to the store and wandering round the aisles is a good prompt for buying things. Especially as I'm very special-offer-driven.

I've been considering writing a random recipe generator/selector to help with this. "Why not buy $(meat) and $(vegetable), $(cooking_process) it and serve with $(sidedish)?" Add a "That is a terrible idea, computer" button to tweak the Markov parameters a bit and bam, MVP.

(Yes, I know the special offers are something of a con, but I also have a good idea of what the non-offer prices are!)

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

#112

Post by eli » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #40

eli wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure and why would people use an app for a ride when they could just hail a cab or drive themselves?

Hailing a cab wasn't a viable or affordable option if you lived in the vast part of the United States prior to Uber. Your options used to be 1) don't go out 2) find a designated driver 3) don't drink, or 4) drink and drive. I've got a ton more options on how to procure food.

But couldn't you have made the same "this will never work" argument when Uber launched? Recall it was originally only available in major cities that had taxis you could hail (at least in theory) and was significantly more expensive than a cab.

I think grocery and other same-day retail delivery is going to be huge, even if it seems a little weird and unnecessary at first.

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

#113

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

gbin wrote: post #101

ams6110 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Most veggies we either grew in the backyard garden or were frozen from the store. People don't remember that the vast fresh produce sections you see at most supermarkets today are relatively new. Back then you might have lettuce, carrots, potatoes, and maybe a few other things available fresh and the quality was not always great.

I still remember this from 1999-2000 in the Silicon Valley...I was shocked, fresh products were hard to find and very expensive. In France it never disappeared, we always had fresh sections in supermarkets on top of fresh market at walking distance twice a week.

It is possibly even more shocking today: The best organic produce can be found at Costco. I've bought blackberries there the size of my thumb, and they tasted like a dessert wine. Never had anything like it, let alone from Costco.

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

#114

Post by TorKlingberg » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:06 PM UTC

mfenniak wrote: post #63

KJKingJ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine are always one off orders. I'll log on, choose an hourly timeslot for delivery and then browse down a list of products i've purchased before (both online and instore) and chose which ones I want to be delivered. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do and they will deliver everything right to my door. It ends up being a huge timesaver compared to having to go to and from the supermarket and pick everything out. I ten…

I feel like a "mini-supermarket" is just a market; the super and mini should cancel each other out. :-)

I think "supermarket" originally meant any store where you pick the goods yourself, rather than asking at the counter.

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

#115

Post by ensignavenger » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

elsewhen wrote: post #58

bluedino wrote: post #50

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.

while they dont have drive throughs, this is pretty common at many stores for no fee http://www.walmart.com/cp/1105733 http://www.homedepot.com/c/pick_up_in_store https://www.macys.com/m/campaign/splash/buy-online-pickup-in... http://www.target.com/c/target-shipping/-/N-551st http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/buy-online-pick-up-in-store

I use walmarts site2store some times; I would use it more if they would allow me to use it for groceries (they don't let you use it for 'perishable' products).

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

#116

Post by TorKlingberg » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

blackguardx wrote: post #83

brianbreslin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that its due to traditionally very sprawled out cities in the US. Huge amounts of the population live miles away from grocery stores. I think in New York you were able to get delivery for years for groceries if you were willing to pay the local grocer extra.

When I lived in New York 5 years ago, every grocery store I went to had some sort of delivery option.

Can you order through their website, app, etc? I'm not going to call in a weeks grocery shopping over the phone.

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

#117

Post by petra » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

jrcii wrote: post #25

lujim wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has a notoriously bad rap, but they are pretty progressive for a big evil company. Amazon seems to get a bit more slack even though I have read that working there is a horrible experience.

To second this, I've had three or four conversations with Amazon warehouse employees and all told me it was a terrible experience. One worked at a major distribution point in Pennsylvania and explained that in addition to being compelled to essentially run back and forth constantly to pick items, they refused to provide air conditioning in the middle of summer.

AC is a bit of an high expectation for such large warehouses.

But when working at static points(as with the kiva robots), there's no reason why they won't provide fans, at least.

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

#118

Post by brudgers » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #91

aianus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this meme. How would the state save money if those people sat at home instead of working at Walmart? How is it Walmart's fault that the minimum wage is so low and the regulations are written in such a way as to incentivize part-time labour over full-time labour? Hate the game, not the player.

Walmart gets a lot of heat but they actually do lobby for a higher minimum wage (which they believe will hurt their less-efficient competitors more than it does Walmart). And really, most retail and food-service companies are no better. With that said, it's certainly possible to run a retail store without totally screwing your employees. Costco is extremely profitable despite providing very high wages and good benefi…

Costco is primarily B2B. This allows it to have membership fees and to combine bulk purchase with retail.

Here's the page for "pork": http://www.costco.com/pork.html The least expensive item [in my browser] is ten pounds of bacon $6.50 per pound. A cash flow that allows allocating $19 to toilet paper is necessary to shop at Costco: http://www.costco.com/toilet-paper.html

The $100 shopping cart doesn't contain the diversity to cover fairly basic human needs, even ignoring the membership fee [I see $55 today].

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

#119

Post by lfowles » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #19

nebulous1 wrote: post #12

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

Walmart has a notoriously bad rap, but they are pretty progressive for a big evil company. Amazon seems to get a bit more slack even though I have read that working there is a horrible experience.

The first place I encountered a working chip reader, even.

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

#120

Post by mathattack » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #3

mathattack wrote: post #2

It seems like Uber and Lyft are currently doing deals like this as big special one-offs. At what point do real world services like this become plug and play via APIs?

When we remove the pesky wetware

Can't you see a world where Lyft or Uber offers themselves as a platform?

"You put in the weight and dimensions of the object to be transported, and we'll give you pricing and an ETA for pickup and delivery"

People could then choose to do the delivery similar to how they choose to pick people up. Perhaps there's a premium (similar to surge pricing?) based on size.