Move Over, Amazon!

The math on offering free delivery with a low minimum order is really, really bad. The percent retailers offer is not enough to cover delivery cost. Add the complexity of doing it from multiple stores vs. a single warehouse, and the service will bleed money. Picking up from multiple stores makes it very difficult to batch multiple orders into a shared route. That just adds to the cost.

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Is that a play on the old drug dealer play: free at first, but once you are hooked, it ain’t free anymore…:grinning:

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-17/walmart-spruces-up-website-in-bid-to-capture-traffic-from-amazon

“About 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart.”

That’s shocking to me, since they have traditionally been in rural areas and the population is increasingly in urban areas.

Meanwhile, Amazon has literally had the same strategy since the beginning.

Maybe the better question is what’s the fate of the traditional grocery store? Walmart and Target are both going hard after the space as a way to increase the frequency of customer visits. Amazon is entering the space. How are Kroger, Safeway, etc going to survive?

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whole foods vs little chinese restaurant.

Only a subset of the population wants cheap food–they will shop at Target, Walmart and more likely, Costco. A subset wants to support local farmers or wants organic–these will shop at what they view as a high quality grocery markets for whatever they can’t get at the farmer’s market or through a CSA. For many, having a deli, bakery, and a fish section is important even if they never use it.

I do a lot of CSA-based food shopping, which pretty much comes delivered to my house or a neighbor nearby. For other food, I shop at Trader Joe’s with Lucky’s and Safeway for items that Trader JOe’s doesn’t carry (like chocolate cake mix/bakery section birthday cakes, etc.).

I’ve decided not to add Amazon to the food market list except for items I can’t get in regular stores (specialty items like Italian grown heritage grain flour). I don’t like losing control over seeing the produce. The place that I have a choice is the paper goods, and we had been getting Kleenax and Toilet Paper on Amazon, but I think they are moving that to the Amazon Fresh section which requires a subscription plus you have to fill a box (can’t blame them, but I’m not sure what I’d fill it with), so I’m back to Lucky’s/Safeway for those.

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Also, if all you want is a container of milk, you’d rather go to a small grocery store than walk a mile [of aisles] to pick it up in a Walmart/Costco/Target sized store.

Man, don’t say that… I live a block away from a Safeway. I can walk over there in my pajamas if I ever need anything. How is Amazon gonna beat that?

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Amazon Go

It’s across town, in the Financial District (supposedly soon)!!! Is it gonna be open at midnight?

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wonder when the homeless starting to figure out how to use amazon go
starting to put up their tents and stuff inside. once they have a tent setup you have to evict them right? hahahaha

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Yup, they are just gonna make Amazon Go their personal refrigerator/pantry… GO figure that, Bezos…

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Brilliant.

https://www.investors.com/news/walmart-earnings-holiday-outlook-ecommerce-sales/