Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
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Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#2Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#3Isn't Amazon Fresh the Amazon Prime for Groceries?
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#4Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
thurn - It does speak volumes. And, if you were to study our model, you would realize that Amazon Fresh and Instacart have very little in common. To start off - we are almost entirely a software company. Amazon Fresh, on the other hand, has warehouses, trucks and they own the inventory - completely different from us. We believe those differences are significant - and hopefully they speak volumes too :)
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#5Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
Yes and no. One thing to keep in mind is that Amazon is a highly diversified company. So even if expanding Amazon Fresh to other cities would turn a profit it may not be worth it to them to put resources behind if it won't be able to turn as much profit as, say, expanding amazon proper to other countries (which they're doing) or building out the cloud business, etc.
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#6Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
While I agree that Amazon not having much success in this market is not a great sign, it seems like there are probably a number of other reasons they haven't been expanding the service. Amazon is trying to be the one spot you buy all physical goods, but it's been proven time and time again that getting to generalized, or trying to be all things, means you can't do all of them (or sometimes any of them) well. I think a new company with this focus definitely has the best chance of success. At which point, Amazon will probably buy them.
For now though, please expand up to Marin!
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#7I hope that while they exist they use heavy duty containers for the deliveries.
I'm still getting a lot of use out of my old Webvan tubs!
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#8Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
Yeah, I just don't see grocery delivery becoming feasible until it's done using UAVs. But the main issue with that (aside from getting FAA approval, which is in the works) is that it'll require retrofitting houses with delivery chutes.
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#9Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
If Amazon sets up a physical business in any given state, they have to start collecting sales tax on all their sales to that state. So "cost effective" for Amazon Fresh means not just cost effective in isolation, but also accounting for the cost in infrastructure, lost sales, etc. that comes with collecting sales tax.
That's one of probably a dozen reasons why what works (or doesn't) for Amazon might be different for Instacart.
Re: Instacart (YC S12) aims to be the Amazon Prime of grocery delivery
#10Amazon has had, what, five years to expand its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service? The fact that they have chosen not to implies that they haven't managed to make it cost effective. I think this speaks volumes about the feasibility of grocery delivery.
Yeah, I just don't see grocery delivery becoming feasible until it's done using UAVs. But the main issue with that (aside from getting FAA approval, which is in the works) is that it'll require retrofitting houses with delivery chutes.
This isn't as hard as you think. Place an optical indicator (like a QR code), on a piece of paper, and put it where you want the groceries to wind up. Drone finds your house. Finds your landing spot (which was presented to you via a nice "print this" dialog when you ordered), and sets the stuff down.
Alternatively, if you're going to be doing this, you can purchase and register an IR beacon that is more permanent than a piece of paper.