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Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

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Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#351

Post by davidw »

BurningFrog wrote: post #333
irrational wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but do you really view that "we're in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions"? I can think of a huge number of actual disasters of epic proportions (full-scale nuclear war, 100 kilometer asteroid impact, yellowstone super caldera explodes, an actual pandemic that has 99% effective death rate arises, etc.) The current situation seems pretty low-key compared to a real disaster.

None of your "actual disasters" have actually happened. For most living Americans, I think you can make a fair argument that this is the biggest disaster in their lifetime. Though I'm open to give other candidates a fair hearing. Keep in mind that this one is far from over yet!

> For most living Americans, I think you can make a fair argument that this is the biggest disaster in their lifetime.

I'm in my 40ies, and while other things are more easily boiled down to a single image or two that get seared in your brain, like the Challenger exploding or the airplane hitting the second tower, there's simply nothing like it to have happened here in terms of the toll in human lives and myriad other secondary problems.

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 was pretty massive in terms of the death toll, but it was more localized in an area far from anywhere I've lived, and if we're looking at the total number of deaths, COVID-19 is well ahead of it.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#352

Post by gregmac »

adrianmonk wrote: post #322
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

About substitutions, I'm guessing they haven't explored what all they can do with that and there are probably some easy wins still available. Right now it seems to be pretty capricious and up to the whims of someone who is in a hurry and whose primary responsibility is pulling things from shelves. They could use software to make educated guesses. Random ideas: (1a) Allow customers to rate substitutions after the fact…

I think substitutions are way, way more complex than that. Just from my own experience:

I eat low carb (keto). Recently I had vanilla yogurt (22g carbs) substituted for Greek yogurt (5g carbs), which I basically can't eat. There's a handful of other things where the carbs can vary wildly between brands such as sausages, salad dressing, and BBQ sauce. Not to mention that many people think the "low fat" version of anything is basically interchangeable (reality: less fat, but 10x the carbs (sugar) to make up for it).

My kid is allergic to peanuts. There's a shocking amount of things that "may contain peanuts or tree nuts" including things you wouldn't necessarily expect like pita breads, meatballs and chicken fingers. We stick to the same brands generally, but always read the label whenever buying something new.

Food allergies are probably possible to handle (though you really do have to check everything), but I don't realistically expect the pickers to follow the more specific/crazy diet restrictions. We've only done online pickup a handful of times but have stopped allowing substitutions on most things for the above reasons.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#353

Post by jimhi »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #328
irrational wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but do you really view that "we're in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions"? I can think of a huge number of actual disasters of epic proportions (full-scale nuclear war, 100 kilometer asteroid impact, yellowstone super caldera explodes, an actual pandemic that has 99% effective death rate arises, etc.) The current situation seems pretty low-key compared to a real disaster.

2,996 people are confirmed to have died in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and look at how the country reacted. Compare that to today where more than that die (just from coronavirus) every day . There’s now over five million dead people who are believed to have died from it. Not to get too off topic, but it’s very concerning that a very substantial portion of the (US) population is convinced it’s some kind of “hoax” being…

I am not disagreeing this is an epic disaster but let's keep the facts straight. There are over five million people believed to be infected with Covid-19 counted. The confirmed death count is ~355k.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#354

Post by nitwit005 »

pdonis wrote: post #124
nitwit005 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when a crop is complete, farmers plow everything back into the soil. Some of it ends up as organic matter that is supporting soil health, and that is okay, too. Basically declaring that the waste is not waste. Solving problems by changing definitions.

No, pointing out that what some people call waste is not actually being wasted, it is serving a useful purpose. "Waste" means it is serving no useful purpose at all.

It's fairly difficult to do something that serves no conceivable purpose. I could buy stuff and throw it straight into the trash and we could say it's not waste as I'm supporting manufacturing and the garbage industry.

If you care about limiting some wasteful practice, you have to pick some definition of what counts as waste.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#355

Post by dwd »

basseq wrote: post #23
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

Even if quality is there, how ripe do you want? Are you going to use those avocados tonight, or later in the week? Do you like green bananas or ones that are turning brown? Let alone the "what looks good today?" or "what's on sale today?" method of shopping! Even packaged goods are tough. When I'm in a store, I know quickly which product I want. I may not remember the brand name, but I can scan the shelf and find it.…

This could solved with a little more thought from those doing the pick and pack.

If someone orders 3kg of bananas or a dozen avos - mix it up with some ripe now and some on the green/firm side.

The biggest issue we had was out of stock items. If you're in the store and a key ingredient is out you decide on a replacement meal which just isn't possible online, as there was no guarantee that what you ordered would still be available when they got through to your delivery.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#356

Post by IggleSniggle »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #328
irrational wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but do you really view that "we're in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions"? I can think of a huge number of actual disasters of epic proportions (full-scale nuclear war, 100 kilometer asteroid impact, yellowstone super caldera explodes, an actual pandemic that has 99% effective death rate arises, etc.) The current situation seems pretty low-key compared to a real disaster.

2,996 people are confirmed to have died in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and look at how the country reacted. Compare that to today where more than that die (just from coronavirus) every day . There’s now over five million dead people who are believed to have died from it. Not to get too off topic, but it’s very concerning that a very substantial portion of the (US) population is convinced it’s some kind of “hoax” being…

5 million is a huge and terrifying number. But the post you are responding to is clearly putting this in the context of WW2-like or worse numbers, where 85 million people died. That constituted 3% of the global population at the time, equivalent to 231 million people dead today.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#357

Post by staplers »

xur17 wrote: post #323
siruncledrew wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interacting with instacart sums up the expression: ”if you want something done right, do it yourself” . At least for me, having to go a store is not a big deal, it’s just overcoming “inertia to leave home”. I would much rather: order directly from the store, have the store pack everything up, express pick it up from the store, and have a confirmation expected=actual for the order. The abstraction to having a third-pa…

> I would much rather: order directly from the store, have the store pack everything up, express pick it up from the store, and have a confirmation expected=actual for the order. My store (Kroger) does exactly this, and I've been very pleased with the service once they worked out the kinks in the first few weeks of quarantine.

Having worked for Kroger satellite offices, this is funny because they announced a "partnership" with Instacart while I was there.

You'd imagine there would be a lot of shared labor, but most of their business decisions were only ever implemented at C-level while managers were clueless as to what was actually being integrated.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#358

Post by gwbas1c »

I tried a local restaurant produce delivery service. The quality of the food was good and the prices were fine...

But the problem was I had to place the order over the phone, which was excruciatingly slow!

Even though I go shopping with a list, I often make a lot of impulse buys which is just harder when ordering groceries for delivery.

I like going to the store in person better. The grocery store is very close to my house and well stocked, compared to all the various niche items I get on Amazon.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#360

Post by [deleted] »

siruncledrew wrote: post #287
monadic2 wrote: post #235

I have had so many bad experiences with instacart: * shopper buying yams rather than potatoes (note: this was not a replacement, they seemed to genuinely believe they had bought potatoes.) * shopper going to checkout before I can suggest a better replacement for an item. * shopper buys obviously moldy fruit. * shopper buys five roaster chickens as a replacement for five cornish hens. * shopper gives up really easily…

Interacting with instacart sums up the expression: ”if you want something done right, do it yourself” . At least for me, having to go a store is not a big deal, it’s just overcoming “inertia to leave home”. I would much rather: order directly from the store, have the store pack everything up, express pick it up from the store, and have a confirmation expected=actual for the order. The abstraction to having a third-pa…

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