Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far • Hacker News Board

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#271

Post by QuercusMax » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #263

jon-wood wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a space for something in between Ocado and Uber Eats, in the 2010s I worked for a startup where you could book an Ocado style delivery slot for the next day from a bunch of different butchers, bakers, etc and then we'd send a van round to collect from all of them and deliver it to you. Annoyingly they ran out of money just a little bit too soon, I'm pretty sure if they'd managed to hold out until 2020…

>the biggest pain there was that we were relying on a bunch of third parties to pack an order, and if any of them got something wrong we ended up with an unhappy customer on the phone and needing to deal with it. Why not have drivers verify the order with the store? Like have the store folks walk through the pick ups. It might be slower up front, but it would save lots of time and money for everyone in the long run.…

I stopped using Doordash because they had absolutely no process to ensure drivers picked up the correct person's order, let alone actually making sure orders are correct. You give me another person's order with completely different things - I don't trust you again.

This is one of the most basic functions that a delivery service should have: making sure that you get the items you ordered, in good shape.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#272

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #238

wiether wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this conversation regularly with friends, family, coworkers... And I've not yet been able to establish the right criteria to guess how a person is buying their groceries. Location, age, income, number of people in the household, physical ability... A single guy living in the city center with good income? Takes his car to go in big supermarket outside the city. A family with four kids living in the suburbs? Goe…

I've found two very general personality criteria for online ordering. Planners. The people who have a meal plan in Google Calendar for the next week and rarely have to "grab one thing on the way home from the store". The people who literally have no idea what they're eating on Thursday will go to the store today or tomorrow, who knows what they'll buy. Multitaskers. The people who do their grocery shopping on the cou…

I don't think that works either. I'm not a meal planner, but I will usually just make do with food I've already bought. Nothing appeals? I might eat cheese toast or yogurt.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#273

Post by l72 » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

mapt wrote: post #182

Animats wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you've re-invented is Keydoozle, from 1937.[1] This was the first automated grocery store. Three stores were opened, but there were enough mechanical problems that it didn't work well. [1] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/keedoozle-automated-store-p...

And what some of us might not have the context for, is that grocery stores at the time were usually clerk-serviced; Just like you don't pump your own gas in New Jersey, at the time the norm was that you handed the clerk a list of products and they fetched them from the shelves for you. Arguably this model has a great deal of compatibility with robotic compact storage, especially in high-land-value areas.

And surprisingly, it was actually Piggly Wiggly that was the first grocery store to open up their warehouse and allow customers to self-service! [1]

> Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly#History

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#274

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #250

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They magically show up at my door for very little extra cost I find tipping for grocery delivery adds pretty significantly to the cost.

I save money because I have Costco executive membership which also gives me Instacart for cheap, so I put those savings into the tip. Nets out about the same plus several hours of my life aren’t spent at Costco every month.

Many of us enjoy shopping, at least enough that what we would pay for it isn't much of a deal.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#275

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #168

chickory3 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in a dense European city and I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. I live in the U.S. and have almost never used a service like Instacart. Also, when I see the item I’m trying to order in Amazon is fulfilled by Whole Foods, I typically don’t buy it, because of the additional cost. I’d rather suffer a small amount of inconvenience to save several dollars on groceries, and often it may mean…

Similar shopping story at our house, but I will observe that Home Depot has made amazing strides into competing with Amazon for delivery of items. They’ll ship me a $10 almost always for free and often next day, sometimes same day. And their prices are competitive in general with Amazon and supplyhouse.com. I don’t know that it’s a great (or even sustainable) offering from their business angle, but I love it as a con…

I dislike Home Depot's politics so much that I make a point of never going there.

In general, I prefer buying local, because it makes my community healthier -- more jobs, directly and indirectly, more options to buy something this afternoon if I really need it. But the reality is that many items are already very difficult to buy. Some of that was true 20 years ago, but it's gotten much worse.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#276

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:48 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #210

squeedles wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that HD (and Lowes) massively subsidizes their delivery ops simply because they don't want to cede the space to Amazon. It allows them to under-stock the stores but still maintain a reasonable range of products. However each time I have ordered, they have delivered a ~$2 part via Fedex, at no extra cost to me. They are a bigger fish than the mom and pop stores but that just means that it will take a little…

Reading these two comments is bizarre from my perspective. How is Amazon competitive with anything? They tend to have higher prices than other online retailers and the intransparent market place system tries to protect shady sellers with product focused reviews instead of seller based reviews. The moment you get even a single fake product or wrong delivery all the perceived savings evaporate at once. The idea of payi…

I buy from Amazon:

  1) When I really need it within a couple of days and can't quickly find it locally
  2) When it isn't carried locally (the local retail stock is a lot thinner than 20 years ago)
  3) If there is a BIG price difference -- used to be common but now much rarer. As you say, Amazon's prices are often worse than buying locally.
  4) When I need it shipped somewhere else. I usually spend Christmas, for example in another city, and it is impractical to bring a bunch of presents. Amazon is good for situations like that.

I dislike Amazon, but they are now so dominant it is hard to avoid them.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#277

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #220

imtringued wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading these two comments is bizarre from my perspective. How is Amazon competitive with anything? They tend to have higher prices than other online retailers and the intransparent market place system tries to protect shady sellers with product focused reviews instead of seller based reviews. The moment you get even a single fake product or wrong delivery all the perceived savings evaporate at once. The idea of payi…

For most everything I'm giving as Christmas gifts this year, Amazon has the best (often tied for the best) price. Things from Apple are cheaper on Amazon than from Apple (Airpods Pro 3, M4 Air, etc.) Predictable delivery, easy/generous customer service, best/tied-for-best price, excellent selection. I'm not sure which part of that is uncompetitive... (If you know a better price on Airpods 3 Pro or a base M4 Air, do l…

In my experience, it varies. Amazon is competitive (usually) on high-volume stuff, but can be wildly overpriced in other cases.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#278

Post by ssl-3 » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #192

ssl-3 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional supply houses are usually that way, too. Graybar[1], for instance: There's a counter with bar stools, and behind that counter are people who know their inventory very well. I just walk in and tell them what I want. They write it all down on paper faster than I can say the words and then disappear into the back to fetch it while I help myself to a free ice cream sandwich from the freezer over on the right…

The instant I read the first sentence of your comment, I thought "McMaster-Carr but for food" might be the most appealing pitch for online grocery delivery I've ever heard. ...with the caveat that McMaster's facilities are staffed by people, not robots.

Amusingly, the Kroger near me is almost that way already.

Log into website, fill the cart, pick a time window, and push the button to order it. Someone starts working on it nearly instantly. The order is picked and waiting in a few minutes.

It's fast as fuck. Except...

---

If someone at Kroger ever reads this, then:

That time window aspect is the part of the system falls down hard for me.

Before I order, I have to pick a window in the future when I want to pick it up/get it delivered.

"I'm ready when you are; ASAP" isn't an option. Nor is "I'm already in the parking lot, you bunch of dweebs -- just bring my stuff out. Please?"

So if it's 6:05 when I order and the next window starts at 8:00, and they're fast as fuck (as they are) and have it done in less than 15 minutes, then: I'm waiting around for more than an hour and a half for nothing.

Because until the apparently-completely-arbitrary window is reached: It won't let me check in to pick up. It won't schedule a driver. My groceries are just sitting there (ideally stored at the right temperature but I can't know this) at the store while some wallclock mechanism that was designed by an asshole runs out.

This makes the whole thing feel clunky, stupid, and insulting.

It results a system that I use only when I absolutely do not want to be inside of a grocery store, like when I'm sick as hell in January and every body part hurts. Any other time, it's way faster for me to go in the store and shop it myself.

It should be convenient. It is instead almost always a burden instead of a benefit.

If picking up a pizza from Domino's worked like this, then they'd have gone completely out of business decades ago.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#279

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #141

dottjt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's different in Europe, but at least in Australia you end up paying more at smaller shops, so I tend to avoid them. Is this the case in Europe as well?

Yes - groceries in a small shop are easily 2x the £/calorie in the UK compared to a big superstore.

I would think the sensitivity to this would depend a lot on family size. Shopping for just myself... it doesn't matter much. Shopping for a family of 4 would be very different.

Re: Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far

#280

Post by infecto » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 6:00 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #270

infecto wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that’s 10 mins round trip. How many times a week, plus the time it takes to pick and checkout.

I mean, I'm walking past it anyway on my way to the office or to the bus stop.

Right we are all different. I don’t want to bother time with walking inside and picking things out. I would rather spend time with my family. All those minutes add up. Some enjoy it, others find value in that time spent, some of us like myself don’t.