Interesting article about web shopping for groceries in Seattle, a new service there. (Good lord, Amazon again.)
I was a little surprised to read:
"Great. They're taking an idea that failed dramatically several years ago and throwing more money at it."
... Web-shopping for groceries is rare in the US? Here in this town in England, I can go web shopping for groceries from at least four stores, and those are only those I know about. I get many groceries that way, since I don't have a car, working as I do from home.
Maybe the writer considers this service special since it has free delivery. I pay five pounds per delivery, a fee I consider eminently reasonable, considering the hassle and time it saves me.
I also learned: "Grocery stores have extremely thin margins, as little as 1 to 2 percent" Holy cow! How can a business even operate in such a way? There can't be any margin for error at all.
27 comments:
I don't know of any places to buy groceries on the Web here in the US. I don't know anyone in the US that does it. I'd still go out to go grocery shopping anyway. It gets me out of the house and who knows, I may meet someone who will be very important to me someday.
I might use it if I needed to get food but did not want to risk snowy weather and roads like last weekend, though.
I've used such a service in Montreal for awhile, but got fed up with mixups and presumably out-of-stock items being systematically substituted for by "house brands", which I often can't stand.
Note that, while the service has been available for many years, I know of only one banner (IGA) that offers it around here, and not even from all of their stores.
Ah, yes. The great WebVan debacle. Pinnacle of DotCom era.
About 10 years ago there was a web delivery service in SanFrancisco called Peapod or Peabody. I had friends in the City who swore by it. They only did the city though. They contracted to a chain of grocery stores I believe.
Around about 2000 WebVan started, a store less on-line grocery store. I had friend in the S Bay and Tri Valley who thought it was great. Around Oakland and the East Bay the service wasn't that good, so many screwed up orders, and lousy fruit. There was the no substitutions check box, so we could risk missing items.
They had tight 30 minute delivery windows, and would just drop off the crates and pick up empties at the next delivery if you weren't at home.
There was a time around 2002 when you could not buy a new cube van for love nor money in the Greater Bay Area, Webvan were buying them all, and indeed had to add to the rapidly growing fleet with second hand vans.
WebVan had great prices, a 24 hour processing period, and most of the time free delivery.
They crashed and burnt in the DotBomb days. Their competitors did too.
Like a Phoenix the service arose from the ashes in the form of Safeway.com. Safeway charge the same rate for most goods on-line, and charge a service fee for delivery. They have one or two vans per town. It's very scaled back from the WebVan days.
We used WebVan monthly, more so with a babe in arms and a bun in the oven for DW, and me working 6*14 hour days, and working 6 hours on Sunday at a hi-tech (silicon) start up. I guess we use Safeway.com once in a while. Especially when like is busy, and getting to the store seems problematic.
There are other options. Nob Hill grocery store has a web order drive up collection service. You buy, they pick and then you collect.
It was wither Tesco or Sainsbury (or both) did it in the UK. Whether there were others (Asda in the pre Walmart days) I do not know.
Strangely the first I heard of web groceries was back in the UK in the mid 90's. A new housing development was being built in Birkenhead. The houses were going to be hard wired to the internet, probably a T1 or DSL connection, and one of the features was on-line groceries.
Steve, you're never going to get laid so you might as well order your groceries online!
In my tiny backwater village in Belgium, groceries have been coming to my door since before I was born. Our local milkman had the clever idea of selling a wide variety of groceries about 60 years ago, and he (!!!) is still doing it to date, along with his son. Who needs the interweb when you have such an amazing service?
If you're not home when he comes calling, no worries! Just stick a note on the order with your order and it'll be there by the time you get back. Payment? Just pay him next time!
I once tried a delivery from Waitrose (apparently a famous supermarket in London). They have no stores anywhere near here, apparently they deliver to all of England out of London!
I tried it because one of the few things I can't find in Sainsburys is a good muesli. (The other one is good crisp bread.) ("Good" meaning "what I like".)
There's an oxymoron "good muesli". Nah, just my personal preference.
I used to like Sainsbury's bread (of 15 years ago). It was the Anglicized French Bread (baguette style). I don't care for the soft crusted French bread we get in CA.
Waitrose still going - that's a name from my dim and distant past. I'd assumed like McFisheries, or International, BigI, Gateway or CO-OP/Leos, they had vanished into obscurity.
In the UK our milkman delivered bread, eggs, OJ and milks. I don't remember butter or cheese. The advent of Supermarkets in the UK en-masse was around '75, superstore appearing in the early 80's. Before then we were shopped in bakers, grocers, butchers and greengrocers. I believe they used to have delivery options, but who could afford that?
No wonder you look like the Pilsbury Doughboy if you hardly ever get off your ass.
Wise thinking, Steve.
As long as you don't get mugged, it's nothing but benefits. :-)
And going out to buy groceries is far better an activity than, say (at random), barking at the kids all day from behind your windows. Or barking at bloggers all day from behind your monitor...
"I might use it if I needed to get food but did not want to risk snowy weather and roads like last weekend, though."
Provided the delivery people don't get the same idea and take the day off!
Anon 1:33, your local milkman sounds like a very modern man. Restoring the sensible methods of 60 years ago is the latest craze. :-)
An oxymoron, "good muesli"?
Me, I'd say a redundance. :-)
Come to think of it, it's been a while since I've bought muesli. Perhaps the healthiest "classic" breakfast there is.
"OJ"? I suppose that must be orange juice.
That british breakfast cultural detail was mentioned in Chapter 2 of my first English course book. The daily life of Arthur Newton, hapless library clerk in Middleton.
Anon 7:56, as the classic joke goes, "That's not the Pilsbury Doughboy, that's a Lego figure!"
ROTFWL! :-D
Try muesli with juice.
OJ is a bit too sweet for me, I use grapefruit juice and water. It sounds odd if you've only used milk, but I like it much better than milk now.
When you get to my age, it's pureed prunes and prune juice for breakfast!
Haven't tried that, but I once juiced pears. Tasted nice, but I hit the toilet like Speedy Gonzales.
(scratching armpit, following inherited ape culture):
...like Speedy Gonzales.
BeepbeeP !!!
I prefer to have my muesli eating it dry, no juice, no milk etc.
The raisins make the stuff sweet and swallowable. I even tried it with whole milk once: Yuck!
:-))
The dinos died, I live.
I guess ordering groceries would be perfect for shut-ins. I mean you hear of these guys who snuff it and aren't found for months - their money is deposited electronically, rent and other bills are taken out electronically... I heard of this old dude in Germany who bit it and was only found months later because the landlord raised the rent and he paid the old amount.
Joe Dick mumbled...
"When you get to my age, it's pureed prunes and prune juice for breakfast!"
Are you sure that was on the right thread, Joe?
Monsieur Beep said...
"...like Speedy Gonzales.
BeepbeeP !!!"
Oops! Wrong cartoon reference.
(Whips out ticket book) "Mister, do you have any idea how fast you were joking there? I don't care if we're in the middle of the Mojave Desert, we have laws against breaking the Acme sound barrier in this state!"
Granted, I myself am in a sorry state.
It's called Lebanon. Completely out of shape.
In fact, I'm just being jealous!
"because the landlord raised the rent and he paid the old amount."
"Old amount"? Is that some disrespectful slang for a cranky senior citizen? :-)
What - someone called me the dough boy, and I didn't notice. At least I wasn't called the Michelin Man.
OJ, no he was an American Footballer who appeared in Capricorn One, Police Squad and White Bronco.
Good English Breakfast:-
starters
Orange Juice or grapefruit
main course
.bacon
.eggs (fried)
.Mushrooms (sauteed in butter)
.Fried Slice (white bread spread with bacon dripping and grilled (broiled for you yanks))
.Grilled tomato, or tinned toms.
.Black pudding (a delicious pork dish)
.bangers (pork sausage)
fish course
.kippers
Filled you up, that did. Not like these American breakfasts of waffles and pancakes, and bacon dripping in maple syrup, served with hash browns (not to be confused with hash brownies or space cake), country fried potatos, two eggs, sausage, OJ and coffee.
Give me a bowl of multigrain cheerios and a juice (orange and pineapple), and maybe a yogurt in the US or Framage Frais in the UK.
As for museli, does a muesli bar count?
Alex, what's the life expectancy in Britain? 45? :)
Filled you up, that did. Not like these American breakfasts of waffles and pancakes, and bacon dripping in maple syrup, served with hash browns (not to be confused with hash brownies or space cake), country fried potatos, two eggs, sausage, OJ and coffee.
Maple syrup on bacon? Or are you saying it gets on it from the waffles? If Americans eat like that every breakfast it's no wonder they're a nation of porkers. All that would do me for two weeks worth of breakfasts.
Ooooh, yeaaaaah... *that* OJ! Allrightie, then.
Bacon is basically (and quite precisely!) animal fat. Literally. If you have any consideration for your valiant coronaries, I suggest you pass. Forever.
Before you pass away.
Mister Dough Jr,
The Michelin man is WHITE, you far-eastern racist cheap imitation of a Simpson! Shame on you for the mere thought.
Besides, comparing yourself to hunky, slender, athletic ol' Mike is a cardinal sin of Pride...
(Not to be mistaken with Gluttony. That one was covered during breakfats, I mean, breakfast.)
Bacon - reserved for Sundays only in my house. In the UK we get a different cut of bacon with more meat to the fat. As you cook it you rend off the fat too. So it ain't so bad.
As for the yellow complexion. That is the standard Danish color for my people. There are some upstarts from movie tie ins which are a tan color, and Samuel L Jackson was one of the first to be "colored", or was it Billy Dee Williams.
There are a few other custom color mini-figures out there, Patrick is his natural color, and Two Face is white and scarred mauve. I guess Catwoman is neither Eartha Kitt nor Halley Berry, maybe she is Michelle Pfifer.
Heck, if yellow was good enough for Steven Spiebergs minifigure, then it is good enough for me!
I once had one of those English meals with bacon, sausage, and eggs, all practically swimming in grease. I could barely walk home after.
You're meant to sit at a table, not in a vat of lard ;-)
"As for the yellow complexion. That is the standard Danish color for my people."
Aren't they the same folks who invented the Lego brick?
(As if I didn't know the answer!)
Around these parts there was a call to boycott anything danish during the Jyllands-Posten "affair". But since it didn't all happen around Christmas... I guess the drop in sales went unnoticed.
: )
[Patented LEGO® smiley]
"Heck, if yellow was good enough for Steven Spieberg's minifigure, then it is good enough for me!"
"Whatsa matter, little man, you yellow?"
Said the living caricature to the character who's got one more dimension.
;-)
I wonder, Alex: have you "heard them all a million times", like other people have with fat jokes, blonde jokes and the like? Or is it just over the internet?
"You're meant to sit at a table, not in a vat of lard"
Yo, R.A.F., that's your cue! Aaaaaand... ACTION!
Do I have to get a real avatar?
I like the new Sean Connery mini-figure. I think I'll grow a beard so I can look like him. The younger dude is his son Harrison Ford.
"As for the yellow complexion. That is the standard Danish color for my people."
What's your people? I thought you were English?
Alex the person is British, a dislocated Englishman. Natural colour, anemic,pasty,white.
Alex the avatar is Lego, a Danish product. Natural colour Yellow.
Aha. For a moment there I thought you were saying you're Asian, and that Lego has representations of the basic ethnic groups. :)
Burnt Sienna for American Indians and so on. :)
A natural Danish dairy white-yellow product, like the one made by Lurpak®. Guaranteed with no added chemicals.
:o)
The Simpsons represent Asians with pale pink skin. Why, me have no clue. (~_^)
"The younger dude is his son Harrison Ford."
"We named the dog Indiana.
- Hey! I loved that dog!"
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