8 ms·

This is obviously part of Amazon's effort to build out their own delivery network in order to muscle out fedex, ups, usps, etc. If their drivers aren't deliveri

by guelo 10y ago

This is obviously part of Amazon's effort to build out their own delivery network in order to muscle out fedex, ups, usps, etc. If their drivers aren't delivering packages they can be delivering food. That makes their whole delivery network stronger because it allows them to have more drivers employed driving around town all the time. It's the same reason Uber got into food delivery.

Finnucane 10y ago
Does that mean your food delivery depends on the package delivery schedule? "Sorry your pizza is cold but we had to deliver a TV first." For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option.
- brianpan 10y ago
  This is under the PrimeNow banner- everything is delivered under an hour.
  - dx034 10y ago
    Depends on the area. At least in London, PrimeNow delivers under one hour for only parts of the city, the rest is in under 2 hours.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  They should probably prioritize the food, and fill off-time with package deliveries.
- dmurray 10y ago
  I think Amazon will figure out that hot food needs to be delivered fast and will generally get prioritised over delivering a TV. > For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. Most people don't care about getting the absolute fastest option, or if they do, they will still compromise for convenience.
  - Finnucane 10y ago
    I guess I don't have that much faith in Amazon's ability to prioritize the customer over themselves (i.e., prioritize routing for the least amount of driving, regardless of what is being delivered).
    - softawre 10y ago
      Really? To me, Amazon is one of the most customer-centric companies out there today.
      - mulmen 10y ago
        That's literally the mission statement of the company.
        ziszis 10y ago
        Overall mission statements have low correlation with behavior. Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence."
        AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
        No, it's different at Amazon. I worked for Amazon for five years and not a day went by without me overhearing "how does this help our customers?" I've never seen anything like Amazon's company culture since, it's truly dogmatically geared towards customer experience.
      - kosei 10y ago
        Agreed. The company is much more likely to do what's best for the company at the expense of the delivery people or the restaurants, based on their track record.[1] [1] https://www.thestreet.com/story/13248764/1/amazons-got-its-sellers-wrapped-around-its-fingers.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/13248764/1/amazons-got-its-s...
    - mulmen 10y ago
- Dan_Nguyen 10y ago
  In my house, we make good use of delivery for one major reason: sports. Sometimes theres no dinner ready and in the hecticness of life, we forget to cook the night before so we get into an unfortunate situation of either going hungry until the game ends or cooking and miss the game. Delivery solves this issue. Take out is definitely faster, but that usually means missing part of whatever game is on. My case obviously isn't universal but given the popularity of sports and how primetime games are only an hour or so after you get home from work, Id think there's a non negligible amount of people with similar situations.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Or get a DVR and pause the TV whilst you get some food.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Some people might not like this since you'll be several minutes behind "live", but an advantage is you can skip any ads and commentary you don't like and catch up to live to see the final play at the same time as everyone else. I don't know if any PVRs still allow watching "live" at 1.25x or 1.5x speed, but if they do (like MythTV did/does) you can also condense a show into the time you have available and still watch the ending live.
  - Finnucane 10y ago
    I care about food more than sports. Which is easy, since I don't care about sports.
    - ncallaway 10y ago
      But, interestingly, there are other people in the world that feel differently than you.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        Increasingly less, considering millenial attitudes towards ESPN and the like compared to previous generations at their age.
- byoung2 10y ago
  For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. For people with small kids, driving to pick up food can be a huge production, with car seats, diaper bags, strollers, etc. Curbside pickup helps, but delivery is so much easier, and sometimes just as fast.
  - monk_e_boy 10y ago
    Yeah, click for a delivery, bath the kids, read to them, put them to bed. Crack open some beer and wait for the food. When I cook it usually takes an hour or so. So getting food delivered frees up that hour.
  - blowski 10y ago
    Agreed. There's also people who can't just "drive to the takeaway and back" because they don't have a car, are over the alcohol limit, etc.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  I've been really sick recently. So sick I couldn't go out of the house. Delivery was literally a life saver for me.
- maruhan2 10y ago
  I think it'd be more like alerts being sent to all the drivers asking who is available for pickup.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. It's not about being the fastest, though, it's about being more convenient. And even fastest depends on the area. Where I live (near a city centre) I can chose among 300 restaurants from a centralized meta-ordering service, and have their food delivered in 20-40 minutes. It will take me 20 minutes to even decide to get up, find my keys, drive around, order and wait for the food.
petra 10y ago
This is very different service from what fedex etc offers, because of the rapid delivery times. So maybe not direct competition on the 1-day / 2-day services. But 1-hour for rush orders at low cost, or free if you order a meal, could be a good competitive advantage. Especially if they could find a way for customers to order a lot of meals, like 3-4 times per week, or have a frequent order in some office in the same building you work.
dforrestwilson1 10y ago
Has Uber had any success at food delivery? Will Amazon?
jknoepfler 10y ago
Obviously is a very strong word.
simonbarker87 10y ago
The problem at the moment is Amazon logistics (at least here in the UK) is terrible. Prime went from a next day, 1-hour delivery window, fully tracked with DPD generally delivered by 1 pm to next day sometime between 8 and 8, no tracking and sometimes not delivered at all for no reason. If a parcel arrives at 8 pm the day after it's ordered it's not a next day service as far as I'm concerned, it might as well arrive 9 am the following day. My new hobby seems to be not getting a prime delivery next day, calling Amazon, them apologising and giving me an extra month on my prime subscription for free - which is nice and everything but I'd rather get the service they promise.
- georgespencer 10y ago
  > If a parcel arrives at 8 pm the day after it's ordered it's not a next day service as far as I'm concerned A parcel arriving the day after it's ordered is pretty much the definition of a next day service.
  - jon-wood 10y ago
    I'd argue that's next evening service, next day implies it'll arrive in the daytime to me.
    - georgespencer 10y ago
      This is because your interpretation of 'day' is of being a subcomponent of a 24 hour period (which probably also includes 'evening' and 'night'). The definition Amazon and every other company offering 'next day delivery' is that 'next day' means 'the next day'. As in the day after you buy the thing. It's a much more reasonable interpretation of the term because it's not open to colloquial misunderstandings (in your interpretation there could be day, evening, dusk, night, etc.). Is 5pm day? Is 6pm day?
      - jacalata 10y ago
        If I'm ordering from an office that closes at 5pm, then no 6pm is not 'next day'.

by guelo 10y ago

Finnucane 10y ago

Does that mean your food delivery depends on the package delivery schedule? "Sorry your pizza is cold but we had to deliver a TV first." For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option.

brianpan 10y ago
This is under the PrimeNow banner- everything is delivered under an hour.
- dx034 10y ago
  Depends on the area. At least in London, PrimeNow delivers under one hour for only parts of the city, the rest is in under 2 hours.
MichaelBurge 10y ago
They should probably prioritize the food, and fill off-time with package deliveries.
dmurray 10y ago
I think Amazon will figure out that hot food needs to be delivered fast and will generally get prioritised over delivering a TV. > For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. Most people don't care about getting the absolute fastest option, or if they do, they will still compromise for convenience.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  I guess I don't have that much faith in Amazon's ability to prioritize the customer over themselves (i.e., prioritize routing for the least amount of driving, regardless of what is being delivered).
  - softawre 10y ago
    Really? To me, Amazon is one of the most customer-centric companies out there today.
    - mulmen 10y ago
      That's literally the mission statement of the company.
      - ziszis 10y ago
        Overall mission statements have low correlation with behavior. Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence."
        AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
        No, it's different at Amazon. I worked for Amazon for five years and not a day went by without me overhearing "how does this help our customers?" I've never seen anything like Amazon's company culture since, it's truly dogmatically geared towards customer experience.
    - kosei 10y ago
      Agreed. The company is much more likely to do what's best for the company at the expense of the delivery people or the restaurants, based on their track record.[1] [1] https://www.thestreet.com/story/13248764/1/amazons-got-its-sellers-wrapped-around-its-fingers.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/13248764/1/amazons-got-its-s...
  - mulmen 10y ago
Dan_Nguyen 10y ago
In my house, we make good use of delivery for one major reason: sports. Sometimes theres no dinner ready and in the hecticness of life, we forget to cook the night before so we get into an unfortunate situation of either going hungry until the game ends or cooking and miss the game. Delivery solves this issue. Take out is definitely faster, but that usually means missing part of whatever game is on. My case obviously isn't universal but given the popularity of sports and how primetime games are only an hour or so after you get home from work, Id think there's a non negligible amount of people with similar situations.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Or get a DVR and pause the TV whilst you get some food.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Some people might not like this since you'll be several minutes behind "live", but an advantage is you can skip any ads and commentary you don't like and catch up to live to see the final play at the same time as everyone else. I don't know if any PVRs still allow watching "live" at 1.25x or 1.5x speed, but if they do (like MythTV did/does) you can also condense a show into the time you have available and still watch the ending live.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  I care about food more than sports. Which is easy, since I don't care about sports.
  - ncallaway 10y ago
    But, interestingly, there are other people in the world that feel differently than you.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Increasingly less, considering millenial attitudes towards ESPN and the like compared to previous generations at their age.
byoung2 10y ago
For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. For people with small kids, driving to pick up food can be a huge production, with car seats, diaper bags, strollers, etc. Curbside pickup helps, but delivery is so much easier, and sometimes just as fast.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  Yeah, click for a delivery, bath the kids, read to them, put them to bed. Crack open some beer and wait for the food. When I cook it usually takes an hour or so. So getting food delivered frees up that hour.
- blowski 10y ago
  Agreed. There's also people who can't just "drive to the takeaway and back" because they don't have a car, are over the alcohol limit, etc.
pmoriarty 10y ago
I've been really sick recently. So sick I couldn't go out of the house. Delivery was literally a life saver for me.
maruhan2 10y ago
I think it'd be more like alerts being sent to all the drivers asking who is available for pickup.
coldtea 10y ago
>For myself, I usually prefer to just go and pick up myself; that's almost always the fastest option. It's not about being the fastest, though, it's about being more convenient. And even fastest depends on the area. Where I live (near a city centre) I can chose among 300 restaurants from a centralized meta-ordering service, and have their food delivered in 20-40 minutes. It will take me 20 minutes to even decide to get up, find my keys, drive around, order and wait for the food.

petra 10y ago

This is very different service from what fedex etc offers, because of the rapid delivery times. So maybe not direct competition on the 1-day / 2-day services. But 1-hour for rush orders at low cost, or free if you order a meal, could be a good competitive advantage. Especially if they could find a way for customers to order a lot of meals, like 3-4 times per week, or have a frequent order in some office in the same building you work.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago

Has Uber had any success at food delivery? Will Amazon?

jknoepfler 10y ago

Obviously is a very strong word.

simonbarker87 10y ago

The problem at the moment is Amazon logistics (at least here in the UK) is terrible. Prime went from a next day, 1-hour delivery window, fully tracked with DPD generally delivered by 1 pm to next day sometime between 8 and 8, no tracking and sometimes not delivered at all for no reason. If a parcel arrives at 8 pm the day after it's ordered it's not a next day service as far as I'm concerned, it might as well arrive 9 am the following day. My new hobby seems to be not getting a prime delivery next day, calling Amazon, them apologising and giving me an extra month on my prime subscription for free - which is nice and everything but I'd rather get the service they promise.

georgespencer 10y ago
> If a parcel arrives at 8 pm the day after it's ordered it's not a next day service as far as I'm concerned A parcel arriving the day after it's ordered is pretty much the definition of a next day service.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  I'd argue that's next evening service, next day implies it'll arrive in the daytime to me.
  - georgespencer 10y ago
    This is because your interpretation of 'day' is of being a subcomponent of a 24 hour period (which probably also includes 'evening' and 'night'). The definition Amazon and every other company offering 'next day delivery' is that 'next day' means 'the next day'. As in the day after you buy the thing. It's a much more reasonable interpretation of the term because it's not open to colloquial misunderstandings (in your interpretation there could be day, evening, dusk, night, etc.). Is 5pm day? Is 6pm day?
    - jacalata 10y ago
      If I'm ordering from an office that closes at 5pm, then no 6pm is not 'next day'.