Show HN: Ernie's, Click & Collect Groceries

Not necessarily. You could make more efficient use of space if you don't have to arrange the store to be customer-friendly.

"I don't even need to go to the store then, they just get delivered to my front door. Or do supermarkets not do this in the US?" Most places, no. Where they do, it's more expensive.

"Personally I've never felt that online ordering has saved me much time."

It certainly could if it were done well. Don't you normally buy a lot of the same things? A good interface would remember that and help you reorder favorite items quickly. Also, groups of items - "all the stuff I need to make recipe X." The store could even upsell by suggesting a recipe and selling you all the items you need to make it, then including a printout of it.

Think how quickly you could shop if you could specify the meals you want to make this week instead of looking for each item individually.

I didn't mean physically particularly, I was thinking more about the range of inventory required. Let's imagine 80% of people want 20% the same stuff. So yeah you could optimise by stocking just that 20%. But I bet you people will move back to ordering from the supermarket where they can get 98% or 100% of what they want. It's just easier than ordering from two places, items don't get duped or missed and of course it's quicker.

What does this give me over Ocado (or their many many many competitors - I mean, Asda deliver?!), who I order from, and then they deliver? This sounds like it just adds an extra step of my having to show up, rather than just agreeing that I'll be sat at home in my PJs watching Jeremy Kyle at the right time...

"You need physical stores": Sort of. We need physical warehouses. The core of the Ernie's business model is that these locations will be much cheaper to operate than the traditional grocery storefront, therefore increasing net margins. They will take expertise to operate; luckily, this expertise is well-established and readily available.

"Your stores are going to have to be as big as a supermarket": Not necessarily. Our SKU count will have to be big enough to be compelling. But Trader Joe's has proven that a very low SKU count can still be compelling if the value proposition is there. Trader Joe's value prop is low prices. Ernie's is convenience. On top of that, we're cramming our SKUs into a warehouse layout. Our real estate footprint will be much, much smaller than a supermarket.

"What's the advantage over just ordering my goods online... ?": The advantage is in the operations model. Home delivery will always be a much more expensive grocery offering. This results in some combination of fees and/or higher prices. Ernie's is not price premium offering. No fees. It's cheaper for us to sell the same can of beans to you than it is for Safeway. Much less than a home delivery offering.

"40 minutes in a grocery store? / 73 hours per year?": We'll just have to agree to disagree on these points. Those folks that hate wandering around the grocery (or have small children, or are physically challenged, or have better things to do with their time) are who we are marketing to. I, for one, look forward to getting 3 days of my life back every year. :)

That being said I think you could build a really interesting interface. Also tremendous overhead savings, no cashiers, baggers, carts, storefront. Basically just a refrigerated warehouse and limited staff.

Awesome.