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Amazon’s Battle to Break into the Grocery Market

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

#21

Post by cm2012 »

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…

They figure that if you already get groceries from them they can eliminate all their other shipping costs eventually. Just throw whatever it is your buying on top of your grocery cart. It's an infrastructure play.

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

#22

Post by jenamety »

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…

>it seems like a weird area to focus on

i see it as you the consumer are the focus, not the products you buy.

Knowing you as a consumer is the goal to be able to serve your every purchase. I'm really surprised Amazon doesn't have a branded credit card that offers unbeatable rewards, thereby seeing all user transactions.

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

#23

Post by dangero »

Gargoyle wrote: post #5
frogpelt wrote: post #2

“It takes a lot of time and experimentation to work through unpredictable scenarios like a child picking up an item or a person wearing sunglasses or a face muffler,” he said. This is funny. Because these aren't unpredictable scenarios at all in a grocery store, unless you are having to write software to deal with them.

I'll be a believer when it can handle a Thomas Crown scenario - multiple people in the same outfit crisscrossing around each other. While a bowler hat flashmob is unlikely, a group of similar dark jackets etc isn't.

This scenario is the same as any other machine learning environment:

The output is prediction with a % confidence score. This means the threshold can be set such that worst case certain people need to be checked out by hand. Fallback to standard checkout means they still cut down quite a bit on the needed human interaction and they can set KPIs around improving those stats.

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

#24

Post by trome »

thedarkginger wrote: post #4

I know this discusses a few strategic plays Amazon is making but shortfalls of the self-checkout project (AmazonGo) are interesting: "In its video touting Amazon Go, the company said it was aiming to open the site to the public in “early 2017,” and it hasn’t provided an update to that timing. But the technology has been crashing in tests when the store gets too crowded and requires human quality control, people watch…

Sure, but who'd actually trust Amazon with their food? I know I wouldn't, they've screwed up 3 out of 5 orders in the past year, leading me to have little faith that they won't give me E Coli covered veggies.

They're opening a large, car centric Amazon Grocery pickup location just over in Ballard as a test, but the particular location they picked is a parking lot for 3 to 4 hours a day, and is over 3 blocks from transit (and where they will be putting the light rail in) due to Safeway & Walgreens already owning that prime real estate.

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

#25

Post by esMazer »

samfisher83 wrote: post #7

Grocery net profits are 1.7%. http://www.fmi.org/research-resources/supermarket-facts Amazon barely makes money on retail operations. What is their rationalization in getting into this market?

would it be possible that if they succeed to create a completely automatic checkout/payment system that the savings would significantly increase the profits in the long run?

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

#27

Post by Johnie »

samfisher83 wrote: post #7

Grocery net profits are 1.7%. http://www.fmi.org/research-resources/supermarket-facts Amazon barely makes money on retail operations. What is their rationalization in getting into this market?

Amazon's business model is all about winning on razor thin margins. They do this by making the cost side more efficient.

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

#28

Post by ghaff »

jenamety wrote: post #19
odonnellryan wrote: post #12

So, my problem with this: I can't usually get things delivered in the same day I want them, and sometimes even the next day. There's no slot available and so on. I don't really think out what I need days in advance. I'm like, "oh, I'm out of... whatever, I'll go to ShopRite today."

So if i knew you order toothpaste on average every 48 days, i could put a new one in cheapo snail mail on day 43. who is in the best position to predict this and take it completely off your mind? current grocers or amazon? your scenario presumes you need to invoke the order yourself. Amazon is going to be predicting your needs (poorly at first but improving over time). I'd wager this big picture includes getting audi…

Amazon already has subscriptions. Personally, I don't buy anything with a combination of frequency and predictability that makes a subscription make sense but obviously some people do. (Diapers I assume are one thing.) And that becomes harder with with perishables. Customizable but pre-populated (based on prior purchases) would seem to make a lot more sense.

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

#29

Post by bogomipz »

trome wrote: post #24
thedarkginger wrote: post #4

I know this discusses a few strategic plays Amazon is making but shortfalls of the self-checkout project (AmazonGo) are interesting: "In its video touting Amazon Go, the company said it was aiming to open the site to the public in “early 2017,” and it hasn’t provided an update to that timing. But the technology has been crashing in tests when the store gets too crowded and requires human quality control, people watch…

Sure, but who'd actually trust Amazon with their food? I know I wouldn't, they've screwed up 3 out of 5 orders in the past year, leading me to have little faith that they won't give me E Coli covered veggies. They're opening a large, car centric Amazon Grocery pickup location just over in Ballard as a test, but the particular location they picked is a parking lot for 3 to 4 hours a day, and is over 3 blocks from tran…

Can you say what happens when they screw up the order? Is it your responsibility to wait around for someone to come collect the wrong parts of the order?

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

#30

Post by afarrell »

Amazon needs to get a lot better at selling people complimentary goods. Once I buy something, I frequently see multiple advertisements for that exact product. Why can't they develop a database of products that compliment each other and so when someone buys a kitchen tool, they start advertising cookbooks.

Example: "On Prime Day, Members purchased over 215,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cookers"

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/13/amazon-prime-day-is-biggest-d...

If you have a database of 100s of thousands of people who all are suddenly looking for recipes and raw materials for a pressure cooker, why not advertise to them?

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