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Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

bloomberg.com

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Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#71

Post by JBReefer »

trome wrote: post #45
bearcobra wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ordered groceries with Prime Now a few times and never once was worried about trust. I'd probably trust their produce more as the people who have also touched it aren't random shoppers.

Sure, but that isn't the prime vector of E Coli and other illnesses spreading. E Coli literally comes from workers shitting in the fields due to the breakdown of the labor movement, as they are not allowed breaks or access to a bathroom with a place to wash afterwards. Thus how you end up with Chipotle serving up E Coli covered veggies. Not having a store that your food comes from might make for a safer mental pictur…

It's a nice story, but E. Coli comes from fields fertilized by manure, or feces contaminated water.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525133/

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#72

Post by djrogers »

> "Online grocery is failing"

I'm sorry to hear that, because Amazon Fresh is the greatest thing to happen to my family's grocery shopping since we became a family. Seriously, we'll the $40 dash wand to add stuff to our grocery list through the week, then I'll sit down for 10 minutes and add some stuff from my wife's meal planning, then boom - next day (or two, depending on when we want it) we have our groceries.

Never gotten the moldy strawberries mentioned in the article, and with a few odd exceptions, everything is cheaper than both the grocery store and target, which saves even more time With 2 store trips a thing of the past.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#73

Post by djrogers »

losteverything wrote: post #41
Johnie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've been using Amazon Fresh for a few months. This is an artifact of living in Silicon Valley bubble. The rest of the country don't live this way.

I know from my job: Amazon Fresh is addictive. It is probably the worse type of thing to deliver for delivery people. Yet week after week the same people get Fresh. And week after week we all say the same thing. "You lazy (expletive). You don't work. You are retired. How fregging lazy are you!!!!! Get off the couch and go to the store yourselves. "

You sound like a judgmental buffoon. Fresh deliveries can be a huge money and time saver, and a literal sanity saver for a family of 5 with a newborn baby.

Look, I can out together a fresh order in about the same anmiunt of town to takes to write up a shopping list. If I avoid ordering from a handful of odd exceptions, it will be cheaper than a trip to the grocery store, and it is guaranteed to not screw up my baby's nap time. Now tell me again why am I a lazy (expletive)? Because it sounds to me like I'm just using the best option available to me.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#74

Post by ryanworl »

8166284 wrote: post #61
ryanworl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your model is too simplistic here. The actual cash leaving Amazon's bank account may not be due to their supplier until 30 or 60 days after delivery. If it takes Amazon 6 days to sell that $100 worth of goods, they can effectively sell $1000 worth of product before that initial cash is due to the supplier if we're talking net 60. This is how a $100 initial cash investment in inventory can produce $17 worth of cash at…

You're desperately trying to contrive a scenario that does not exist, the rate on buying merchandise and selling it in groceries is still 1.7%. Borrowing money and playing with the time window does not change this.

I'm not going write a long explanation about this, but "borrowing money" and "playing with the time window" is the foundation of so many different kinds of businesses I can't list them all.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#75

Post by massysett »

Spooky23 wrote: post #18

It's cool that they are trying to innovate here, but it seems like a weird area to focus on. The high growth areas in grocery are things like prepared foods and produce. Owning the middle of the store to try to out-Walmart Walmart seems like a low-value proposition. I've been using Amazon Fresh for a few months. The delivery aspect is awesome, but the rest of the business is pretty questionable. They cannot keep anyt…

"I'm basically getting a week of groceries free every month"

Many people would get this kind of screwup one time, and then they would stop ordering.

The story said disappointed customers would return moldy strawberries. That's if Amazon was lucky. Scores more would simply never shop again.

I stopped ordering groceries online after a few small mishaps. This service saves me no time if I have to deal with screwups.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#76

Post by losteverything »

djrogers wrote: post #73
losteverything wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know from my job: Amazon Fresh is addictive. It is probably the worse type of thing to deliver for delivery people. Yet week after week the same people get Fresh. And week after week we all say the same thing. "You lazy (expletive). You don't work. You are retired. How fregging lazy are you!!!!! Get off the couch and go to the store yourselves. "

You sound like a judgmental buffoon. Fresh deliveries can be a huge money and time saver, and a literal sanity saver for a family of 5 with a newborn baby. Look, I can out together a fresh order in about the same anmiunt of town to takes to write up a shopping list. If I avoid ordering from a handful of odd exceptions, it will be cheaper than a trip to the grocery store, and it is guaranteed to not screw up my baby's…

I am simply writing the words of the people who deliver the on-line goods.

EDIT: My point was that Fresh is addictive. Not the words I hear each day. Amazon Prime is addictive. And Fresh is too. There are some real quality problems Fresh has to solve w.r.t. delivery. They have to match their parcel perfection where virtially never the contents are damaged (their cardboard is outstanding). But those green 'things' simply rip, tear, turn over, and are expected to be reused. Once people start Fresh they seem to keep it going, from what I have seen.

Standing in our office each day the conversation is NOT about the convenience whatsoever. I toned down the language, in fact.

When a person gets a roll of paper towels or a case of soda or diapers it is the same thing: Or a car seat or a snow blower or dog food (especially dog food) anything that used to be picked up at a store. Nobody says, "Wow, look at this great service we provide our patrons. I am so glad we deliver things they use to buy at Walmart." No way. If you think that you have never been in a delivery job for your entire life.

We don't get paid any more to delivery the new on-line goods. Not one cent more. Fresh has some additional requirements that make them a really awful delivery.

I would not call you lazy, but 75% or more of my office would. Actually I have never heard one person ever say a positive thing about delivering stuff people can get themselves at a store.

If you think your delivery person (USP, USPS, FEDEX Ground) is ambivalent then think again. Perhaps they are pleased there is more business, but they also deserve to earn more for the increase in parcel delivery.

I speak from an insiders view.

Oh - and no carrier will admit this because it may impact their holiday tip.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#77

Post by gautamnarula »

baron816 wrote: post #42

Physical supermarkets can still be really terrible. It always seems to take me over an hour to do my grocery shopping. My idea to bring the industry into the 21st century would be take a similar route to Blue Apron et al, where all the ingredients are combined into a single package. The difference is that the work of preparation would be distributed to local restaurants looking to supplement their income, and people…

I've thought about this in similar ways. The reason I don't use Blue Apron is because it's pricey--$10/meal when you're cooking at home isn't very affordable unless you're a lot of disposable income.

But I understand why it's expensive. Each box of ingredients must be shipped with multiple cooling packs to keep it from spoiling, and shipping to each individual's doorstep also adds costs.

Imagine if grocery stores offered a similar Blue Apron like service, where they came up with good, reasonably healthy recipes, and packaged all the ingredients (which they already have in store) in the appropriate amounts into a box with recipes and instructions, just like Blue Apron, and you could pick up the box at the grocery store. They could easily offer this for less than half the cost of Blue Apron, and the value proposition (at least to me) would be so big (no meal planning, no wandering around a the grocery store for an hour, no risk of buying too much stuff that I then goes bad) that'd be a no-brainer to use it.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#78

Post by Spooky23 »

massysett wrote: post #75
Spooky23 wrote: post #18

It's cool that they are trying to innovate here, but it seems like a weird area to focus on. The high growth areas in grocery are things like prepared foods and produce. Owning the middle of the store to try to out-Walmart Walmart seems like a low-value proposition. I've been using Amazon Fresh for a few months. The delivery aspect is awesome, but the rest of the business is pretty questionable. They cannot keep anyt…

"I'm basically getting a week of groceries free every month" Many people would get this kind of screwup one time, and then they would stop ordering. The story said disappointed customers would return moldy strawberries. That's if Amazon was lucky. Scores more would simply never shop again. I stopped ordering groceries online after a few small mishaps. This service saves me no time if I have to deal with screwups.

Their responsiveness convinced us to try a few more times. The utility is amazing and still saves more time.

Re: Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

#79

Post by losteverything »

Spooky23 wrote: post #67
Johnie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've been using Amazon Fresh for a few months. This is an artifact of living in Silicon Valley bubble. The rest of the country don't live this way.

I live in Albany, NY. Definately not in a bubble. They have an arrangement with USPS to deliver groceries. The service itself is fantastic. It's just that they are effectively attaching $20 to each order in different costs and have trouble managing the packing operation. It's great for us because they deliver early and it reduces our grocery trips.

Curious? Do you have an online grocery pick-up nearby. Like Walmart or Wegmans or whatever?

I think there is a race: Pick up or delivery. Both win. If you try pick up at the store it becomes SO easy. And delivery also is easy...

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