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

161–170 of 170 posts

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

#161

Post by vertex-four »

ghaff wrote: post #104
duncanawoods wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its interesting that in the UK, its more environmentally friendly to have your groceries delivered than to drive out and get them yourself because of the efficiency of the specialised delivery vans that have refrigerated racks for 100s of pallet\trays and then do a route in cities\suburbs serving dozens of orders in close proximity. Some random taxi driver sticking a pallet in their boot (sorry, trunk) seems like a p…

It seems like a reasonable way to experiment. The history of online grocery delivery in the US is littered with companies like Webvan that made huge infrastructure investments up-front on the "if you build it they will come" model. This seems like a really sensible way to find out if there is a market for almost zero investment.

Part of the issue is that companies like Webvan and Instacart exist. There's not really a whole lot of money in it - supermarkets in the UK manage to charge anywhere between £0 and a whopping £7. The thing is, if you don't provide online shopping as a supermarket, your customers will just use another supermarket's online shop.

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

#162

Post by coredog64 »

drivers99 wrote: post #122
rsheridan6 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any unskilled job is going to have a low enough pay rate that many of the employees will qualify for public assistance. This goes for Walmart, Target, and the mom and pop shops Walmart replaced. If Walmart went out of business tomorrow, these people would still be on public assistance. That's today's economy.

This article[1] though on a biased (in that they have a point of view) site, has links to some state data, so it's convenient to link to it. It's also specific to medicaid benefits. > Of the 50 companies with the most employees on Medicaid in Massachusetts, almost half are retail and restaurant chains. The list includes CVS, Home Depot, May Department Stores, Sears, Kohl’s, Walgreen, Lowe’s, and Best Buy. > Similar d…

It would be interesting to break out average age of employee as well. In my experience, Target trends towards younger employees.

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

#163

Post by coredog64 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #129
paulmd wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Walmart are in profit aren't they? They don't need to lobby for a wage increase they can just give their employees one (as you intimated). If they're lobbying for higher minimum wage when they don't already pay a higher wage themselves then it seems their motives are malicious. It's not something that reflects well on them anyhow.

Grocery stores are some of the lowest margin businesses in the US (on the order of 3%). Payroll is a pretty large expense, so it's not as if Walmart can just willy-nilly double salaries because the Waltons are extremely wealthy. If you were to wave a magic wand and redistribute the Waltons' gains to US employees, it would be something like $2000/year.

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

#164

Post by jon-wood »

wiremine wrote: post #95
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…

> then browse down a list of products i've purchased before (both online and instore) and chose which ones I want to be delivered That's cool. So they keep a history of everything you've purchased? Do they do that by credit card or do you log in some how when you purchase instore?

All the stores have loyalty cards which link on and off line shopping.

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

#165

Post by jon-wood »

mseebach wrote: post #160
prplhaz4 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The typical grocery delivery service also has the luxury of batching orders (controlling cost) and delivers with refrigerated vehicles (consistent product)...seems more sustainable to me...but what do I know - to me, the Uberization of most markets (other than ride sharing) never seems to have a clear win on cost/benefit...

Also important for cost: An online supermarket can save a ton on rent by having fewer, much bigger fulfilment centres, located in cheaper slightly out of the way industrial zones. Classic supermarkets are generally in commercially attractive areas, close to traffic hubs or in downtown locations.

This is massive in the UK. Ocado run nothing but heavily automated warehouses as their online only, and a lot of the big supermarkets are starting to run similar locations optimised for delivery packing. Somewhat tangentially I've even heard of a couple of restaurant chains opening dark stores which do nothing but fulfil delivery orders.

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

#166

Post by rsheridan6 »

drivers99 wrote: post #122
rsheridan6 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any unskilled job is going to have a low enough pay rate that many of the employees will qualify for public assistance. This goes for Walmart, Target, and the mom and pop shops Walmart replaced. If Walmart went out of business tomorrow, these people would still be on public assistance. That's today's economy.

This article[1] though on a biased (in that they have a point of view) site, has links to some state data, so it's convenient to link to it. It's also specific to medicaid benefits. > Of the 50 companies with the most employees on Medicaid in Massachusetts, almost half are retail and restaurant chains. The list includes CVS, Home Depot, May Department Stores, Sears, Kohl’s, Walgreen, Lowe’s, and Best Buy. > Similar d…

Walmart recently (this year) changed their pay structure so that nobody will make less than $11/hour, which is good for jobs that don't even require high school or the ability to speak English, so data from 2011 is outdated.

But being paid $11/hour still means that at the workers with dependent children will still be on Medicai and other public programs.

Very few unskilled jobs pay enough that a single mom is not going to qualify for benefits, so these stats probably reflect more than anything who the company hires or retains. If they hire lots of single moms, they will be lots of employees collecting benefits. If they hire more men, older people or younger people, they will not.

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

#167

Post by pigeons »

lujim wrote: post #7
drglitch wrote: post #5

Call me old fashioned but I still would trust UPS/FedEx more with my packages - as opposed to contracted amateurs. Granted, last mile delivery is always a challenge... How long until you can get a freight van through uber's subprime leasing program?

Agreed, but to be fair that was how I felt about having Uber driving me around when I first heard about it a few years ago.

And that's why I don't use Uber, their drivers are much less professional (smoking, loud music, don't know the area, poor driving skills) than taxi drivers.

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

#168

Post by hobarrera »

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.

Then again, the amount you can order online is a lot larger than what you can carry yourself.

I tend to order from wholesalers online, for amounts that would require a cab and a lot of carrying heavy stuff if I purchased that physically.

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

#169

Post by axaxs »

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.

Interesting you say that. I was just having a long conversation recently about how grocery is one area I wish could be... innovated in(I do not like the term 'disrupted'). From a store's perspective, items are rather low margin. From a producer's, they are not (as purchased in retail).

Outside of the multitude of 'walmart' farmers' stories, I remember rather recently reading of a lady who made salsa, who made cents per jar sold on an item that cost a few dollars to the consumer.

This means there is heavy markup at someplace, which I suspect is at the distribution and delivery. It was evident to me when, to make a pizza of high quality with many toppings, it ended up costing me more than even the local chains charged (greatly reducing the 'economy of scale'). There are billionaires in this particular realm, Walton's excluded, see Richard Cohen.

This also makes me wonder if then, distributors like C&S, Sysco, or Gordon Food Service would get into the personal delivery game. In the end, it seems rather silly to deliver goods twice.

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

#170

Post by BostonEnginerd »

drglitch wrote: post #5

Call me old fashioned but I still would trust UPS/FedEx more with my packages - as opposed to contracted amateurs. Granted, last mile delivery is always a challenge... How long until you can get a freight van through uber's subprime leasing program?

FedEx used to operate like that - the drivers were private contactors who had to buy their own equipment:

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/02/8565/fedex-fails-...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/06/16/fedex-sett...

Post reply on HN