I know these businesses are very regional. Where we are Instacart has some insane prices and Shipt is absolutely kicking their butts on service. I'm having trouble understanding the $4.2B valuation given their execution.
Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
81–90 of 150 posts
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not surprising to me, it all ties back to the reality that it is more expensive to be poor than not. If you are poor, you most likely don't have the ability to keep a kitchen stocked with cooking essentials (spices are expensive), pots, pans, the increased water and heating cost to run a dishwasher and oven. Never mind the fact that most people living paycheck to paycheck are going from job to job and are physic…
The energy and other utilities for 1 meal will be like $0.30. So that barely registers compared to time and ingredients.
Bad credit affects utility costs. Most impoverished people have bad credit. Again, being poor costs more in almost all areas of life in America. Contrary to popular belief, utilities are not a right. Utility companies have the right to refuse you if you have enough delinquent payments, can't front the deposit (if you have bad credit) or even outright refuse you (if you have terrible credit). Even on the FTC's website, their advice if you have trouble paying your utilities is basically to "budget harder"
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
groceries are unlike pretty much every other online segment, which is why it has resisted being moved online (until very recently). the model of having a warehouse simply "near" a city is a model amazon has tried for 10+ years without success -- you must have many warehouses within the city to make it work. i am not entirely clear how you arrived at "Does instacart fit ? it seems not.", so it would be good to underst…
I think he's saying a customer will ask "is Instacart cheaper than Walmart" and the answer is "no", so there isn't a place for Instacart to fit, assuming Amazon owns the high-end side with Whole Foods (although I wouldn't assume Amazon would settle for just that). Walmart already has grocery warehouses with their stores, so bolting on pickup/delivery to those makes sense. I don't know how much pickup/delivery could p…
right now, whole foods is something like 1 or 2% of the grocery market in the US. we plan to be the partner to the rest of the nation -- my initial question was how on earth you can just assume amazon (by default) owns the rest of the high end market, and, why you think "bolting on delivery" is easy/trivial.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
as an engineer at instacart, it's very disheartening for me to see the top-rated comment on HN is "I can’t wait for instacart to go out of business." even if we did not provide value to you (which i apologize for -- it is a priority of ours to improve the replacement experience in particular as it is very frustrating to customers), i am not sure why that implies that we do not provide a valuable service for others an…
Saying “we charge markups, but we won’t tell you what they are” is still not sufficiently transparent, in my opinion. Yes, Amazon and grocery stores do the same thing (at face value, anyway) by not disclosing their COGS. But the key difference is that my next-best alternative to Instacart is to just go to the grocery store myself. My next-best alternative to getting something delivered from Amazon isn’t to get it mor…
i am very confused why you have a higher bar for this than other services. would you actually create a spreadsheet that values your time (against other alternatives), gas/lyft/train fare to and back from the store, the extra costs associated with actually being in a retailer (and seeing the specials in store etc) and compare that against our offering?
and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup -- those are coming from the retailer directly, who may (or may not) mark up prices, which is their prerogative. we put all of our costs in the checkout screen transparently.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
From one armchair economist to another I suspect the Federal Reserve will have something to do with what I wouldn't call a "recession" per se, but a slowing of growth through interest rate hikes.
Fed doesn't have much room to play with interest rates currently, and won't until we see a meaningful pickup in productivity, or else they risk further depressing investment into productive assets and rerouting it into speculative assets (high interest rate = high cost of borrowing/lending = high friction = slows economy down). We would observe a productivity increase through wage growth, as would be expected in a hi…
Ah - that's an interesting perspective I had not considered. I was basing my prediction on the stronger than expected job gains, GDP growth forecasts, and how the Fed is cutting back on quantitative easing.
Keeping an eye on the US inflation report coming out this Wednesday should provide more guidance on what the Fed may do - if it's higher than expected I think the Fed will probably raise rates by another .25%.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never used Instacart, but your link to show transparency, doesn't actually state what the mark up is.. 2%, 10%, 25%, order minimum or there's fee.. Transparency to me, would mean I place order and know how much it will cost, instacart mark up, service fees and if a tip is included.
we used to provide specific percentages, but phased that out over time as it was obvious that wasn't providing real value -- where on amazon.com do you see their markup? additionally, for virtually all stores on instacart.com now, we are simply passing on the pricing that the retailer has given us (which may or not be marked up from their internal prices -- but we do not control) edit: to be crystal clear, that means…
My concern is the price of getting the product at the store verse instacart delivering it.
If you can get a discount directly from the store, great! You are providing value to them.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a former restaurateur, I would like to tell you, contrary to popular opinion, during the last major economic downturn in 2008 (2009 for me since I was in a southern state, and the downturn hit us a bit later than most), spending money out to eat actually went up . The theory goes a little something like this -- people actually spend more money on themselves to cheer themselves up when life gets shittier. So folks,…
It's call the Lipstick Effect, aka Lipstick Recession Indicator. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lipstick-effect.asp And just as a somewhat tangential but related story to the phenomenon, British soldiers distributed lipstick tp the liberated but gravely ill women of the Bergen-Belsen concetration camp in WWII, it lifted their moral just enough in some cases to help save their lives.
I love this. Never knew it had a name. Thanks for showing me that. I also love all history related to WWII, so thanks for giving me Wikipedia food for 3 hours tonight.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#88I have never had a good experience with instacart. I’ve ordered from them probably 10-15 times and every single time, without fail, they either forget an item or replace an item with another item that I don’t want. This makes the service unusable, because if I’m cooking dinner that night and want to order instacart, there’s a high likelyhood I’ll be missing something crucial for my recepie, meaning I’ll have to go to…
I've had the exact opposite experience. Instacart worked really well for me, and Amazon Fresh was well, never that fresh. I suspect the quality of the service varies on geographic location
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying “we charge markups, but we won’t tell you what they are” is still not sufficiently transparent, in my opinion. Yes, Amazon and grocery stores do the same thing (at face value, anyway) by not disclosing their COGS. But the key difference is that my next-best alternative to Instacart is to just go to the grocery store myself. My next-best alternative to getting something delivered from Amazon isn’t to get it mor…
i am very confused why you have a higher bar for this than other services. would you actually create a spreadsheet that values your time (against other alternatives), gas/lyft/train fare to and back from the store, the extra costs associated with actually being in a retailer (and seeing the specials in store etc) and compare that against our offering? and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup -- those are coming…
>> and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup
So you claim, but since you refuse to list what the IC markup is then it's impossible for us to tell. You're essentially using the retailer markup as an excuse to hide instances of when you do it yourself.
Thus the lack of transparency.
In any given transaction, I have NO idea what the actual % that was added by IC. I do not have this problem with Amazon Prime.
Re: Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
#90From an outsiders perspective this looks like a bad investment. But I'm an outsider, so I know I don't have all the information. I would love to get an insiders perspective on why this is a good investment. My two main concerns: 1) Amazon and Whole Foods: Are they not a concern? 2) Economic downturn: Will people still order groceries at a premium?
> 2) Economic downturn: Will people still order groceries at a premium? I'm not sure about the data and large trends for this, but here's my anecdote: Right now Instacart is the cheapest way for me to get groceries. Someone with a gun took my driver's license from me a few months ago, my bike was dismantled by thiefs, and I don't live within walking distance of a grocery store. Lyft/Uber there and back is $20. Bus th…
>Someone with a gun took my driver's license from me a few months ago
Unless this person was a police officer, and you're glossing over a lot of the story, you can obtain a new one at your local DMV and resume operation of motor vehicles...