Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries

Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sukuriant on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:45PM (#7642860)

"I really need those cough meds right now."

"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.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by phreanix on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:10PM (#7643027)

I can see how 2 days can be unacceptable, but those reasons are just plain bad planning.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by aneisf on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:16PM (#7643070)

People plan poorly. There's a lot of money to be made helping people through that.

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.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by lttlrck on Thursday April 24, 2014 @08:01PM (#7643906)

How would this service solve running out of milk at breakfast? How is this a problem that must be solved before we focus on bigger and better things?

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by jdminhbg on Thursday April 24, 2014 @08:12PM (#7643949)

This is bigger and better things. Every cancer research scientist with kids probably loses hours of potential work time a month dealing with dumb shit like "we're out of milk" that this would solve. I don't think being super-narrow-minded about "big ideas" contributes a whole lot to the progress of society; if it's something lots of people are willing to pay for, you have to accept the possibility that it's useful and contributes to society in a way that you couldn't think of immediately.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by justinreeves on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:18PM (#7643080)

Seriously? Bad planning? Those reasons are things that happen to everyone, sometime. Are you perfect?

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by Crito on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:19PM (#7643091)

Eh, cough syrup expires. I had a nasty cough a few months ago, and discovered that my previous bottle of cough syrup was 5 years old.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sjs382 on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:19PM (#7643089)

Bad planning happens.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by calbear81 on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:02PM (#7643375)

Or.. you can use the myriad of grocery delivery services available to get a delivery within hours. Not everything needs to be bought on Amazon.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by mkr-hn on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:20PM (#7643471)

> Or.. you can use the myriad of grocery delivery services available to get a delivery within hours. Not everything needs to be bought on Amazon.

You make it sounds like they're commonplace.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by calbear81 on Friday April 25, 2014 @01:58PM (#7648046)

Most major metropolitan areas have grocery delivery services either via the grocery stores themselves or a TaskRabbit like service (Instacart, etc.)

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by mkr-hn on Friday April 25, 2014 @03:57PM (#7648707)

Not this one. TaskRabbit doesn't serve Atlanta, Instacart is limited to a small number of cities and doesn't exist this far out from Atlanta's core, and none of the 7 grocery store chains within 30 miles delivers.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by smileysteve on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:37PM (#7643221)

Have you heard of subscribe and save? It prevents all of those (given fresh) and saves amazon in shipping costs.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sukuriant on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:59PM (#7643348)

I have not; but the point around my list was the sudden 'woops', where things are eaten up more quickly than expected, or there's a surprise one-off expense. Cough syrup, in particular, is more of a one-off thing. Most people don't run out of it on a schedule

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by smileysteve on Friday April 25, 2014 @12:28AM (#7644788)

Sadly, like the Target predicting a pregnant teen, Amazon could probably use data to figure out when you need cough medicine.

The ultimate operations experience is JIT arrival based on predictive behaviors.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sukuriant on Friday April 25, 2014 @05:02PM (#7649015)

That sort of research could be invaluable to the CDC and may in fact be worth researching more closely

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by vacri on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:07PM (#7643409)

I find the definition of oneself "as a consumer with children". What parent isn't a 'consumer'? Some isolated hill-family that shoots their own food and lives off the land? It sounds like there's some sort of entitlement expected from that definition, the same way people expect entitlement when they say "as a taxpayer..."

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sukuriant on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:21PM (#7643475)

A single person doesn't have to manage the additional stress of children wanting to play with our touch all the things in the store.

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.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by vacri on Thursday April 24, 2014 @11:19PM (#7644573)

Please read my comment again, and you'll see that it's not the "with children" part that I am talking about. My first sentence is admittedly missing a bit: "... to be weird". Describing yourself as a consumer is entirely redundant in this context, and it makes it sound like you should get special treatment for some reason.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sukuriant on Friday April 25, 2014 @05:05PM (#7649033)

Ah. That wasn't me, that was deftnerd. I didn't read the subtext in their words that you did. Then again, I agree shopping with kids is a greater hassle than shopping without them, so I probably just skimmed over it without any mental triggers or bias.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by bullsbarry on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:27PM (#7642748)

You're missing the context of this being grocery items. For most people a multiple day wait for their groceries would be unacceptable.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by leviathant on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:01PM (#7642950)

I've been getting groceries delivered for years now from Peapod (and a brief trial with Freshdirect). We get our groceries delivered two or three days after we place our order - you might be able to get them sooner, but I think it costs more for that option.

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.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by Theodores on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:49PM (#7643599)

I spend 5-10 minutes deciding which potatoes to buy in a big supermarket. My choice of potatoes will probably be good for 3 meals and I like to get the right ones. I will carry them home, up a big hill with plenty of other food items, by bicycle. I will peel, prepare and cook them with a great deal of care.

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.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by sneak on Thursday April 24, 2014 @06:20PM (#7643472)

This is not most peoples' grocery shopping experience or expectation.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by whoismua on Saturday April 26, 2014 @11:41AM (#7651732)

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.

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. '

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by WalterBright on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:17PM (#7642710)

I remember when mail-order took a month, if you were lucky. [sigh wistfully for the good ole' days] And there was this round thingy on the phone that hurt my finger if I had to do a lot of dialing.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by icebraining on Thursday April 24, 2014 @05:01PM (#7642951)

Why? My grandmother didn't have electricity in her home, but she could buy groceries in 15 minutes. It's not exactly a great luxury.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by r00fus on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:32PM (#7642776)

As someone who gets Safeway delivery, Google Shopping Express and Amazon Prime, I see Prime as the slower of the options, and recently it's not even been price competitive on many things (example: Cereal).

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).

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by thevardanian on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:32PM (#7642780)

I think the times are changing. Perhaps it's you who needs a reality check, but as the world goes along I think it'll become "unacceptable" for a package to take more than a day or two to arrive.

At least that's where I see things going.

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Re:Amazon, in Threat to UPS, Tries Its Own Deliveries by thoughtpalette on Thursday April 24, 2014 @04:36PM (#7642804)

Instacart (chicago) just did an order for me in 3 hours. Ordered around 1pm, driver delivered around 4. Pretty amazing turn-around time.

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