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Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#11

Post by kalleboo »

josephschmoe wrote: post #10

It's hard to compete with grocery stores: 1. They're local. Most people have a grocery store within 5 minutes of their house. 2. They're well-stocked. You have ten thousand products to choose from. Who could ask for more? 3. They're timely. If you go to a grocery store, it will take you a certain maximum amount of time - the amount of time it takes to go down each aisle once. 4. They're accurate. You picked every ite…

Grocery delivery is getting quite popular in parts of Europe now, usually run by the grocery stores themselves (Tesco etc). They're popular with families, where making an outing to buy a week of groceries with two kids in tow after you get off work late in the afternoon can be a real ordeal. Made worse by the fact that fewer people own and drive cars here so you're lugging the groceries on a bus or by foot.

In the US it might not be as big a market due to a different lifestyle.

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#12

Post by s_q_b »

Oh my God wow. This is highly convenient. I'm in DC, and I saw the puzzling "corner store" option when ordering a car this afternoon. I'll relate how the delivery experience goes once I try it today or tomorrow.

I already get my groceries delivered, usually for free from Safeway or Harris Teeter. One of them will run a free delivery special once every two weeks, so I mostly restock on non-perishables, and grab fresh food from the Whole Foods myself.

But the on-demand aspect brings a whole new level of convenience. I'm right in their target demo, so if it works smoothly I'll be thrilled.

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#13

Post by smackfu »

josephschmoe wrote: post #10

It's hard to compete with grocery stores: 1. They're local. Most people have a grocery store within 5 minutes of their house. 2. They're well-stocked. You have ten thousand products to choose from. Who could ask for more? 3. They're timely. If you go to a grocery store, it will take you a certain maximum amount of time - the amount of time it takes to go down each aisle once. 4. They're accurate. You picked every ite…

5. They have loyal customers. "Brand X has bad produce" is knowledge handed down between the generations.

6. They have pretty low margins on a lot of their inventory.

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#14

Post by trhway »

looks like new generation tries their teeth at the same delivery problem that the previous generation tried 15 years ago :)

Considering that delivery by a full-bodied adult in a car is a pretty expensive thing, it can be solved either by hyper-optimization (incl. prediction), or by utilizing new or untapped delivery resources like school children/dogs/pigeons/drones/automated cars/electronically collared and constantly video recorded low-offense prisoners/etc...

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#15

Post by mmanfrin »

ereckers wrote: post #9

Why are Silicon Valley startups continually trying to get into the food and grocery delivery business? Is there research somewhere that shows that this is a lucrative market? I'm old enough to remember Webvan, I'm seeing COSTCO cede their delivery service to Google, and I realize that most food delivery business is minimum wage work. I don't see the money in it.

I think for two reasons: Food delivery is essentially rent-taking, since once someone begins to use it, they'll use it indefinitely (until a better service or format comes along); and secondly, I see grocery delivery as a way to trojan horse in to same-day parcel delivery, since if a person is delivering your groceries, the marginal cost of having them also deliver a package is tiny in comparison to the cost of delivering just the package.

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#16

Post by pistle »

Pretty sure it's moves like these that will render most Uber valuation apologists' defenses of the valuation based on cab usage growth moot. If they could satisfy the valuation on cab fare middle-person, this would not be the experiment.

Also, something close to most peoples' logic spot would be that they are not delivering fresh produce. So, only a subset of the stuff that you find in the "middle aisles."

I'll paint in a really broad stroke, but the people willing to pay premiums for the luxury of grocery delivery buy more stuff around the outer edge of the store vs the aisles of processed carbs and food science.

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#17

Post by 27182818284 »

ereckers wrote: post #9

Why are Silicon Valley startups continually trying to get into the food and grocery delivery business? Is there research somewhere that shows that this is a lucrative market? I'm old enough to remember Webvan, I'm seeing COSTCO cede their delivery service to Google, and I realize that most food delivery business is minimum wage work. I don't see the money in it.

>I'm old enough to remember Webvan,

I see it as very different from something like, say, Instacart not because of the core idea of grocery delivery, but because Webvan made some mistakes that seem made-up when read today. Recall they had their IPO just 60 days after their first webstore which in turn was something like one month after their beta launch.

So they went from beta with 1000 users to IPO in like 90 days. That's, what, the time Instacart spent just in Y Combinator growing and learning?

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#18

Post by [deleted] »

ereckers wrote: post #9

Why are Silicon Valley startups continually trying to get into the food and grocery delivery business? Is there research somewhere that shows that this is a lucrative market? I'm old enough to remember Webvan, I'm seeing COSTCO cede their delivery service to Google, and I realize that most food delivery business is minimum wage work. I don't see the money in it.

[deleted]

Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US

#20

Post by rhino369 »

ereckers wrote: post #9

Why are Silicon Valley startups continually trying to get into the food and grocery delivery business? Is there research somewhere that shows that this is a lucrative market? I'm old enough to remember Webvan, I'm seeing COSTCO cede their delivery service to Google, and I realize that most food delivery business is minimum wage work. I don't see the money in it.

I really wonder why as well. Grocery is a super low margin, super competitive business.
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