Losers for me were Home Depot and Canadian Tire. They iterated slowly and when they did, made things worse it seemed.
Home Depot on the other end was great. When there was a shortage of disinfectant (and government mandated clean hands before allowing people into stores) they just added actual washing basins with regular soap and paper towels and I could go get stuff to do projects. I have never been to HD as often as during 2020.
I used online ordering literally once at HD and CT each during that time. HD made me call/text a number with my order# when I arrived and they brought the items out for me but I really only used that because something was low stock in the one of many HD stores I could go to that had any of the item at all and I wanted to "reserve" it. No app needed which is a big big plus for me. I abhor all these apps for everything.
CD wasn't bad either. Same deal, reserving an item with low stock until I could go get it. I just picked it all up at the online order desk where it had already been put in a cart.
I don't like ordering food online. Had to do it once while waiting for a negative covid test result. You don't get to pick the actual items you want (fruits/veggies). Not great. I already don't like how cashiers throw your sensitive veggies around all the time. Never mind how they're being handled in the rest of the chain. Before anyone asks, yes I do choose which line I choose by who is the cashier/packer over length of line.
Walmart doesn't "try" where they have to compete with upscale options because even if they do good the rich people will still shop there.because of the Walmart stigma. And the poor people only care about price so they won't be turned off if Walmart doesn't try hard.
Also, there are some really crappy Home Depots out there. In my experience they're the ones without appreciable competition.
If anything more people touch your items in this system or its on par. Sure there's no cashier/packer touching your items at checkout. But the equivalent has to happen internally. I have no idea how it actually works but I gather since most stuff goes directly into the store and not the warehouse someone walks through the store and picks the order like you would exposing themselves to the Covid risks and then potentially someone else packs it all up and yet another person delivers it to your car as this happens asynchronously and there might even be a shift change in between.
FWIW my Costco didn't pretend the pandemic didn't happen. I still sometimes have to wait to get into the fruit/veggie or dairy coolers, with someone making sure that not too many people are in there at the same time. They applied the limits intelligently (only allowing one person per membership into the warehouse at all at a time when the government limits were very low) so as to allow more people to shop without having to wait outside for ages (which happened in the first 'panic buying stage' of the pandemic). They have less produce in the cooler too to allow more space for passing (even to the detriment of the produce. I just don't buy some stuff any longer as its no longer cooled and there are quality issues). They also rearranged some other stuff to make it easier to access without bumping into each other. None of the other stores I have been to have done this at all.
Amazon has only recently pioneered last mile logistics. It still isnt that great. I’m in a large metro area and 25-50% of my packages do not meet the prime delivery dates. I’d argue Walmart is still the king of logistics, for now.