http://downtownbellevue.com/2007/09/27/amazon-fresh-online-g...
I live in a moderately big city and there are 4 Leclerc Drives (www.leclercdrive.fr), and then there's Chronodrive (www.chronodrive.com) and U (www.coursesu.com).
Chip and pin arrived in France when the rest of the world were still writing cheques and doing carbon copies for credit cards, with the bank having to be called if the amount was over the card guarantee limit.
The out of town big box hypermarkets were also a part of the French landscape at a time when in the UK people would have to push some mini-trolley around a 'Fine Fare' or other such defunct supermarket in some town centre shopping arcade.
I don't have a car however, so I have been looking at orders delivered to my door, and the offer is still rather poor. I'm in Lille, and even though it's a rather large city only Monoprix and Auchan offer that. Even not considering the shipping and handling charges Monoprix is already more expensive than all the other supermarkets, and Auchan online has very few products offered, to the point of being completely unsuitable as my main groceries source.
The few first orders to Monoprix bear large discounts though (which actually made the end price cheaper than what I would have paid in the nearby "real" supermarket) so I tried their service, and I am very pleased with it, to the point where I'm almost ready to use them more often even if they're more expensive.
Groceries get delivered to my door the day after, at the hour I choose, this looks like the future to me.
Many large cities in France also have a local fruits and vegetable delivery company (usually with mostly organic and/or local products).
Well, anyway, what I want to say is that I'm very pleased with the recent development of these services. I can finally skip spending hours in a supermarket every week and hauling back my things by bike or public transport.
I've long assumed Amazon would compete more directly with both shippers & big box stores - by combining optional last mile delivery for items as well as potentially pick up points.
Fresh probably can't work very efficiently outside of a few hyper-condense markets. But ordering everything online and driving through to pickup a preselected batch - of groceries, cables, clothing, electronics (whatever)... that is very doable. You just need regional fulfillment centers (check) and then smaller local pick up points... this could be achieved with an acquisition or two.
If you're laid up in bed and can't leave the house, Fresh is awesome.
Giant: http://www.peapod.com/ Ralphs: http://shop.mywebgrocer.com/ Safeway offers same day delivery: http://shop.safeway.com/ecom/home
That's a few different regions, and the Ralphs has been doing it for over five years. I bet the idea has spread to most major cities by now.
I don't know why this hasn't just displaced normal grocery shopping. Lack of knowledge about it or customer comfort, hard to establish new buying trends for basic purchases, no idea.
In Seattle, there is often an option for same-day delivery. I suspect they'll eventually roll that out to most cities, assuming it's a successful experiment. I had a ~3 hour turn around the other day (ordered something at 11am and it arrived around 2pm) for a total shipping cost of $2.99 w/ Amazon Prime. It was kind of crazy and made me realize I'm living in the future.
While you're at work, your car will leave and drive through an amazon warehouse at 1mph. Someone picks your order, loads it into the trunk of your slow moving vehicle which then returns to your office. End of the day, your goods are there.
Lots of problems to solve between where we are and there, but I do think that's where we're headed.
Relevant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E
Holy crap you need a reality check.
"Mooooom, we're out of milk, and I want CEREAL!!!"
"Alright, so I have everything for dinner, but it looks like we're a little low on butter, so I can't make the cake like I wanted to :/"
Now add that you have kids to the scenario, and you've got to drag them along to what should be a 3 minute shopping trip.
There are a lot of situations where taking that long for something is pretty unacceptable.
And when these services are widespread, people will be free of the necessity to expend energy "planning" their access to the essentials of life. Then we can focus on bigger and better things.
You make it sounds like they're commonplace.
The ultimate operations experience is JIT arrival based on predictive behaviors.
Children don't want to have to be drug around to a store just so they don't get in trouble / hurt at home.
So, there is a bit of difference between a consumer and a consumer that has children. The difference being that the monotonous tasks like shopping are more difficult with rogue agents.
I don't have kids, this is just my assessment of the situation.
You know what we never have to do? Spend more than 5-10 minutes shopping for two weeks' worth of groceries. I don't even leave the couch, and when the delivery person shows up, they take the bags right into the kitchen.
Totally acceptable.
The idea of them being bought from some standing order setup on some ipad screen for them to just arrive and be placed into the kitchen is just mind-blowing. I don't know if I could live like that.
In the future houses will have kitchen cupboards that can be opened from outside, probably with some steel shutter/garage door type of arrangement. You probably won't even have to have Mr delivery man step in the house, he will back fill the cupboards and even take away any out of date items for you.
Now all you need to do is buy a robot that feeds you and open a hole in your couch to put a toilet in.
But seriously, people need to get out, see the 4-5 types of tomatoes and buy the right ones. Your version works for a subsection of people, most will plan grocery shopping on their way back from work or as family time. you can buy the shampoo and Gillete razors once every few months, but for many things can't beat the 'see, touch and buy. '
While I know GSX is still "beta", I'm sure those who have Instacart would agree - same day is awesome, and it's available now in many places (and i don't have to pay $300 per year to participate).
At least that's where I see things going.
Not sure if someone else picking them for you is the same. Maybe one day we'll reach that level, but I doubt what you suggested is better than putting your kids in a cart, give e candy or toy and shop.
As a consumer with children, it's a major hassle to go to the grocery store with my kids in tow. It's also unacceptable to wait 2 days to get what I order.
The ideal solution would be for me to go to Amazon Fresh, pick my location so I can be assured that everything listed is in stock, and then do my shopping.
On their end, the workers would pick the products from the shelves and toss it into bins with a barcode on them, just like they do at the Amazon Warehouses now. There would be 3 categories of bins: Frozen, refrigerated, and room temp.
When my order is ready, I would get an alert on my phone.
Then I would drive to an Amazon Fresh site and park in a numbered spot and either press a button on an adjacent speaker box or something or enter the parking spot number on my phone.
I would get a notice that an attendant is on their way. A few minutes later, a cart would come out with the bagged groceries and the attendant would load them into my car and I would leave.
This really seems like the best choice for Amazon. It lets them have regional centers for product warehousing so they don't have to ship cross-country, it lets consumers get products instantly without last-mile logistics problems, and it would let them gradually transition to their own in-house delivery for their regular products and not focus on the products that need instant delivery. Having their own delivery unit, UPS, and local delivery companies would encourage competition and keep the prices low for them.