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Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#271

Post by HPsquared »

kkukshtel wrote: post #233
randycupertino wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a compa…

This is basically the playbook of every "disruptive technology" startup or FAANG initiative of a similar stripe - set prices incredibly low to bleed out competition and gain market share, then raise them once you are in the dominant market position.

At a certain point it's not about technology anymore, but access to cheap finance. See also: Uber.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#272

Post by kube-system »

CSMastermind wrote: post #213
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment completely misunderstands why NYC (and the core of most major cities) is not impressed by a supermarket. Wegmans is popular because Wegmansnis good. But if you have a local baker, a local grocer, a local deli, and a small grocery store within the same block, all within walking distance of your apartment, you don’t need to deal with the hassles of finding stuff within a massive supermarket. You get the hi…

One of the things I hated most about living in NYC was grocery shopping. Having to walk meant you could only practically buy in small quantities, and visiting different places for different things was super annoying and inefficient. Moving out and being able to take my car to the georcery store once a week and get everything I needed was one of the best quality of life upgrades from leaving.

I did the exact opposite and and it was most impactful quality of life upgrade I've ever done. I eat fresher and healthier food, I walk more, and I'm not tempted to snack on my stockpile of accumulated food.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#273

Post by iknowstuff »

ssl-3 wrote: post #267
mrighele wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further, when you don’t have to drive 20-30 mins to go to a grocery store but the stores you need are within a 5 min walk, Once you get used to have everything at a walking distance, you wonder how you could put up with having to drive to a supermarket. Two are the main advantages. The first is that you don't need to plan much in advance. Want to make hamburger tonight ? Cross the street, get meat from the butcher,…

It's a 4-minute drive for me to get from my present house to the nearest grocery store (a Kroger of decent size). I don't plan much for this journey. I don't bundle up on clothes or lace on a pair of stout boots first. I just kind of set forth (in my loafers) and drive over there -- even as everything is covered in snow, muck, and it it is 2 degrees (F) outside. I went there last night for two tomatoes, a head of let…

But does your drive look like this https://www.reddit.com/r/Suburbanhell/comments/13r7fd3/whats...

And can taxes from the community actually pay for the infrastructure to support this, or do they need subsidies because taxes per sqft are abysmally low and car infrastructure costs astronomically high? https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023-7-6-stop-subsidizin...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#274

Post by kube-system »

jandrese wrote: post #190
Cornbilly wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that they faced essentially no consequences for this. A sure sign that we have a functional and sane market.

What's the crime? If lying about AI capabilities is a crime we have some billionaires in big trouble.

If it's a publicly traded company, everything is securities fraud.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#275

Post by ssl-3 »

bombcar wrote: post #229
awkward wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't renting walking distance to a butcher baker and candlestick maker for less than $3K for a studio. That's an aspirational lifestyle for a few neighborhoods.

In all these discussions it would be really nice to have actual addresses and locations because the dream is obviously desirable but I just don’t know how often it occurs in actuality.

That'd be nice. Except...

I only speak for myself here, but: While it would almost certainly be very easy for a sufficiently-motivated person to track me down and knock on my front door, I don't like broadcasting the details of where I am.

I might occasionally mention something like "some small city in Ohio [of many hundreds]" when that seems pertinent to the context, but that's about the extent of what anyone will ever get out of me on a public forum.

Y'all generally seem to be rather swell here, but this is a very public place that gets crawled approximately-instantly by search engines, and the world doesn't need to know what block I live on or the name of the bodega on the corner that I might feel like writing about.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#276

Post by nightpool »

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #46
justonceokay wrote: post #13

I’m in an interesting place. Here in Seattle I am two blocks from one of the largest Amazon Fresh stores. It was built on the former location of a local grocer. The construction was almost complete before Covid hit, but Amazon shuttered the store during that time. As a result there was no groceries in my neighborhood from 2018-2023. Now it seems Amazon is going to leave us a grocery desert yet again. They were piloti…

Not to be rude but there’s 4 Amazon Fresh locations in the greater Seattle area and each of them is next to multiple other large/small grocery options. For instance, the one in north Seattle (Shoreline) is within eyesight of a Safeway, a Sprouts, two international markets and a chef wholesaler. The other three locations are similarly crowded with options. What food desert are you referring to?

It's literally highlighted on the map you sent: https://postimg.cc/Cn8BGP4S

There's no walkable grocery store in that area. My friend lives in the area and uses a wheelchair, and Amazon Fresh was the only actual grocery store she could go to.

As much as I'm hoping they do, I would be very surprised if they open a Whole Foods in that area.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#277

Post by ssl-3 »

iknowstuff wrote: post #273
ssl-3 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a 4-minute drive for me to get from my present house to the nearest grocery store (a Kroger of decent size). I don't plan much for this journey. I don't bundle up on clothes or lace on a pair of stout boots first. I just kind of set forth (in my loafers) and drive over there -- even as everything is covered in snow, muck, and it it is 2 degrees (F) outside. I went there last night for two tomatoes, a head of let…

But does your drive look like this https://www.reddit.com/r/Suburbanhell/comments/13r7fd3/whats... And can taxes from the community actually pay for the infrastructure to support this, or do they need subsidies because taxes per sqft are abysmally low and car infrastructure costs astronomically high? https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023-7-6-stop-subsidizin...

No. We don't have roads like that here where I am. At all.

But when I've lived in larger cities that did feature such expansive roadways, the supermarket was also less than a ~5 minute drive away.

In one instance, it was close enough that I'd walk there instead of drive -- even for a couple of tomatoes, just to stretch my legs. That was a fairly opulent store as such places go, but there was a Kroghetto just a block further out if I felt like being cheap today.

(And I refuse to be baited into a discussion about how cars are, or are not, evil. I am powerlesss to change that, or to change anyone's views. That's a complete non-starter of a conversation that is absolutely devoid of merit.

I can only piss with the cock I've got.)

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#278

Post by GorbachevyChase »

cmiles8 wrote: post #7

Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…

I’m a bit surprised a publicly traded company is allowed to make materially false claims about their products and capabilities without getting into a major lawsuit for defrauding shareholders. Maybe Amazon is just above such trifling things such as law.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#279

Post by mikestew »

felixgallo wrote: post #187
lelandfe wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truckers are the biggest demo but it's sold under a generic category.

huh. What's the product listing? I don't think this story rings true.

Then don’t believe it and go on with your day. No one owes you a link to anything, especially if you simply don’t pay attention to Amazon’s widely-reported business practices.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#280

Post by bee_rider »

PaulHoule wrote: post #197
bee_rider wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in MA the standard options are Star Market and Stop and Shop, right? New England supermarket chains are already perfect. I think the comment you are replying to is playing up a specific characteristic of, like, deep-in-the-city NYC (it looks like Wegmans has a place in downtown Manhattan?). I also read it as slightly tongue-in-cheek. People in NYC know what grocery stores look like, I think. They just don…

Well I dunno to what extent the NYC lifestyle distorts the perception of stock market analysts. Do they think there are Duane Reades coast-to-coast? I used to joke that you couldn't get a good cup of coffee in NYC in the 1990s because there were 2 or 3 Starbucks on every block to fool stock market analysts that the country was saturated with them -- thus driving out the independent espresso bars that you'd find in fl…

Was there ever good coffee in NYC? I was a kid in the 90’s so I wouldn’t remember any time before. I grew up in NE and am convinced we

1) just haven’t really ever been on the forefront of coffee

2) invented Dunkin Donuts to flip off the coffee world (I know people sometimes say it is good but I think they are just being contrarian (although I will agree it is really not much worse than, or is just as good as, Starbucks))

Anyway, I’m pretty glad for the explosion of hobbyist coffee, it is pretty easy to make a good espresso at home these days.

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