Going to the grocery store is actually pretty time-consuming. That's true even though I live within a few blocks of one.

I just did some back-of-the-envelope math and determined that the minimum time it could take for me to go to the grocery store and come back, from door to door, is about 40 minutes, and the maximum is about 2 hours. I took into account everything from walking to my car in the parking garage and getting out of the garage to finding a parking spot, waiting in line to check out, hitting traffic lights on the way there and back, etc.

I think this is why I don't cook as much as I'd like to. I can either spend 40 minutes getting groceries and then needing to cook a meal and then eating it, or I can spend 40 minutes picking up, say, Chipotle, which includes eating the food.

Grocery shopping has to be the worst inefficient process there is. Count how many times you handle a can of beans: Shelf-to-cart, cart-to-checkout, checkout-to-bag, bag-to-car, car-to-pantry, pantry-to-shelf, then later shelf-to-kitchen, kitchen-to-recycle.

Have you considered getting the groceries delivered from a real grocery store rather than Uber as per article? I normally get them delivered once or twice a week depending on need and the delivery price is considerably less than my "per hour worth". Also I don't run into things not being available at my local store, I don't buy things on impulse (leading to cleaner living, no crisps etc) and I can arrange for things even at only 30 hours before my chosen time slot.

Yes! Couldn't agree more. Touched on this in a comment a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5039418

So much time wasted.

...and I skipped bag-to-cart and cart-to-car

But you can go shopping only once a week if you have storage place at home. That's a pretty good amortised cost compared to your estimate of eating at Chipotle.

How long do you account for cooking and eating a meal?

The OP stated that they did not 'cook as much as' they would like to. This implies that perhaps cooking is something they may enjoy doing. Time spent doing something you enjoy is not equal to time spent doing something you don't particularly enjoy.

Grocery delivery is getting quite popular in parts of Europe now, usually run by the grocery stores themselves (Tesco etc). They're popular with families, where making an outing to buy a week of groceries with two kids in tow after you get off work late in the afternoon can be a real ordeal. Made worse by the fact that fewer people own and drive cars here so you're lugging the groceries on a bus or by foot.

In the US it might not be as big a market due to a different lifestyle.

I'm not sure this isn't satire. It reads like you did a search/replace on a defense of Blockbuster against the upstart Netflix.

To your specific points:

1. Locality is a huge competitive disadvantage. Real-estate, staffing, infrastructure, etc.

2. More-efficiently managing a wide selection and optimizing for product that frequently turns over is a key advantage of warehouse/delivery operations.

3. It makes no sense to compare an interruption of your day with an asynchronous order/delivery method. No-one uses Netflix the way they used Blockbuster. No-one misses Blockbuster.

4. Personally picking fruit directly off plants was more accurate than personally picking fruit in a grocery store. It's also something most people don't miss as a regular chore. Warehouse/delivery has a massive advantage here as well, as they'll be able to better manage inventory flow and don't have to suffer the same exposure to elements/contaminants as a grocery store.

They can even offer "ugly produce" at a discount, bringing the same implicit assumption of responsibility for odds and ends and generating sufficient extra revenue from the particular buyers, to effectively serve them and any returns.

There's no "niche" for this. The niche will be serving the people who enjoy farmer's markets and those who dropped a dozen eggs and will pay a premium for their replacement.

There's also the "City people who don't have cars" market. When I was one of those people, I'd have happily paid a $10-ish delivery fee to not have to hand-carry 20lb of groceries about a mile.

I may live within 5 minutes of a super market, but it's still a time-consuming (up to one hour to shop) activity that I find inconvenient and have to do very regularly. I would gladly pay a premium (and I do, via Instacart) to have it taken care of for me.

Before I started getting my groceries delivered, I would find myself regularly ordering delivery food (also online via foodler) and spending way more money because I was too tired/lazy to run to the grocery store after work.

Regarding point 3:

I don't know that this is true. I consider going to the grocery store a creative endevor about half the time I go there. Sure I start with a list and some ideas. But then there are sales on items I like. Or they have some particularly good looking produce that I want to feature in a meal. Or they are out of some other key ingredient for a recipe.... not to mention I'll be updating the menu in my head as a wander the aisles - Seeing and being in the food is extremely distracting since I really like to cook.

Sometimes I just want to go in, grab some basic supplies and leave. I will be exploring delivery options for this case, because it will be harder for a 10 minute trip to the store to turn into a 40 minute menu binge for my impromptu dinner party tomorrow.

I would like to see the Ebay of local grocery delivery. Maybe with three components: Buyers, Sellers, and Delivery people (for stores that don't already deliver). Matching people in the local area. Rating delivery guys and automatically choosing based on these ratings. Heck, it doesn't even have to have hands on involvement of the store in question - maybe the delivery guy himself can post a list of items he'll buy for you at the store.

Sure, you can use a large supermarket, but I'd really love to go online, see my local store(s), and click to purchase a handful of items and have them delivered within the hour as conveniently as a pizza.

It's one of the many ideas I'd build if I weren't already building stuff ;)

I'm neither elderly nor very very busy (maybe ~.5 verys), nor wealthy, but I'd gladly pay 30% more for my groceries if I could order them via a typical online shopping interface and have them show up at home at a set time (within a one hour window).

Most people have a grocery store within 5 minutes, sure - but with 10,000 products? I've been living in London for the summer and if I were here any longer I'd be using a supermarket's delivery service. Sure I can find stores nearby but nothing like a tesco extra. And when the shop shrinks the things that go are the value items - and I end up paying twice as much for something that tastes the same and has a different label.

I could easily save the £5 delivery charge or whatever by having access to them thousands of items.

American grocery stores do. Walmart grocery stores could fit a small town downtown in them.

I see your point though. It's interesting to be informed of all of these different needs I had not previously considered.

I mean we have lots of large stores.. but I wouldn't say everyone has one within 5 minutes. How many of these town-sized stores are there in a city out of interest?

Depends on where you are. Springfield, MO for example has 5 Walmart Supercenters and 4 Walmart Neighborhood Markets. They also have at least one Hy-vee (They were planning on building at least one more, but I don't think it is completed yet). And that is just two companies with large stores. The town has several local and regional grocery store chains- and Dilons (Kroger). Many of these store do offer delivery service, too.

This all in a city that is less than 10 miles from one side to the other (160,000 population).

EDIT: I forgot- there are also 2 Sam's Clubs.

5. They have loyal customers. "Brand X has bad produce" is knowledge handed down between the generations.

6. They have pretty low margins on a lot of their inventory.