5 ms·

Sure, but who'd actually trust Amazon with their food? I know I wouldn't, they've screwed up 3 out of 5 orders in the past year, leading me to have little faith

by trome 10y ago

Sure, but who'd actually trust Amazon with their food? I know I wouldn't, they've screwed up 3 out of 5 orders in the past year, leading me to have little faith that they won't give me E Coli covered veggies. They're opening a large, car centric Amazon Grocery pickup location just over in Ballard as a test, but the particular location they picked is a parking lot for 3 to 4 hours a day, and is over 3 blocks from transit (and where they will be putting the light rail in) due to Safeway & Walgreens already owning that prime real estate.

bogomipz 10y ago
Can you say what happens when they screw up the order? Is it your responsibility to wait around for someone to come collect the wrong parts of the order?
- trome 10y ago
  Depends, twice I've had to ship it back, and once Amazon told me there were no returns and refunded me (Samsung Evo+ 64GB that only did 6MB/s, rated at minimum 10MB/s). That being said, I need to throw that MicroSD card away, whenever I use it in a camera or single board computer instead of a tested Evo, it causes poor performance.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    Oh I was asking about the food ordering specifically. I was curious how errors are resolved with perishable items.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      Complain, receive refund.
      - bogomipz 10y ago
        So no different than any other Amazon order. I've noticed I have do the "complain receive refund" more and more in the last year with them.
bearcobra 10y ago
I've ordered groceries with Prime Now a few times and never once was worried about trust. I'd probably trust their produce more as the people who have also touched it aren't random shoppers.
- trome 10y ago
  Sure, but that isn't the prime vector of E Coli and other illnesses spreading. E Coli literally comes from workers shitting in the fields due to the breakdown of the labor movement, as they are not allowed breaks or access to a bathroom with a place to wash afterwards. Thus how you end up with Chipotle serving up E Coli covered veggies. Not having a store that your food comes from might make for a safer mental picture, but Amazon is going to go with the cheapest vendor every time, and they don't have the scale of Kroger or HEB to knock prices down anywhere near them, thus they must buy lower quality goods to hit the same price point.
  - JBReefer 10y ago
    It's a nice story, but E. Coli comes from fields fertilized by manure, or feces contaminated water. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525133/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525133/
  - jonknee 10y ago
    > Not having a store that your food comes from might make for a safer mental picture, but Amazon is going to go with the cheapest vendor every time, and they don't have the scale of Kroger or HEB to knock prices down anywhere near them, thus they must buy lower quality goods to hit the same price point. It's a dangerous game to bet against Jeff Bezos losing because Amazon lacks scale and problems hitting price points. Amazon may not have the grocery scale of Kroger today, but it also has billions of dollars to spend, a different cost structure and no need to compete with existing grocery chains completely on price (it's a different service, Kroger won't be at my door within two hours).
thedarkginger 10y ago
Since the article stresses repeatedly that Amazon is all-in on produce... I think this is a big question for their ML approach. One of the annoying parts of not-really-self-checkout that is available in big grocery stores today is that you have to scroll through a screen, choose the correct brand (i.e. Dole Banana), and then weigh it before it prices your order. Wonder what their strategy is to price variable weight products (i.e. produce) without introducing new friction into the user experience
- trome 10y ago
  Amazon will likely pre-weigh the items and give each a price embedded barcode, though it will be quite labor intensive even with the $100k wrap and weigh machines you can buy today.
- komali2 10y ago
  They might go the way of Trader Joe's and just charge a blanket price per "piece" of produce.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Yeah. This is one of the reasons why I really don't care for self-checkout in grocery stores. Sure, self-checkout is mostly OK so long as you're swiping small boxes of barcoded stuff. But get to produce and it's a mess. I basically won't use self-checkout if I have any non-barcoded merchandise. (Which basically describes every time I go to a grocery store.)
  - twothamendment 10y ago
    Yes - no bar code? I won't self check, but also the large items that won't fit in the bag. I learned the hard way that it can take too long for them to get the self checkout lane to stop crying about how I didn't put a 10' pipe in the bag. Unless I have one or two well marked, small items, I avoid the self checkout.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      The particular fascination of big box home improvement stores has seemed a bit odd given the number of items that don't fit with the model. Sure a lot of small purchases do but many don't.
alasdair_ 10y ago
I do. I order from Amazon Fresh every week. The reason is simple: after fifteen weeks of having Safeway deliver my food, not a single time did they deliver all of the items I actually ordered.

by trome 10y ago

bogomipz 10y ago

Can you say what happens when they screw up the order? Is it your responsibility to wait around for someone to come collect the wrong parts of the order?

trome 10y ago
Depends, twice I've had to ship it back, and once Amazon told me there were no returns and refunded me (Samsung Evo+ 64GB that only did 6MB/s, rated at minimum 10MB/s). That being said, I need to throw that MicroSD card away, whenever I use it in a camera or single board computer instead of a tested Evo, it causes poor performance.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  Oh I was asking about the food ordering specifically. I was curious how errors are resolved with perishable items.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    Complain, receive refund.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      So no different than any other Amazon order. I've noticed I have do the "complain receive refund" more and more in the last year with them.

bearcobra 10y ago

I've ordered groceries with Prime Now a few times and never once was worried about trust. I'd probably trust their produce more as the people who have also touched it aren't random shoppers.

trome 10y ago
Sure, but that isn't the prime vector of E Coli and other illnesses spreading. E Coli literally comes from workers shitting in the fields due to the breakdown of the labor movement, as they are not allowed breaks or access to a bathroom with a place to wash afterwards. Thus how you end up with Chipotle serving up E Coli covered veggies. Not having a store that your food comes from might make for a safer mental picture, but Amazon is going to go with the cheapest vendor every time, and they don't have the scale of Kroger or HEB to knock prices down anywhere near them, thus they must buy lower quality goods to hit the same price point.
- JBReefer 10y ago
  It's a nice story, but E. Coli comes from fields fertilized by manure, or feces contaminated water. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525133/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC525133/
- jonknee 10y ago
  > Not having a store that your food comes from might make for a safer mental picture, but Amazon is going to go with the cheapest vendor every time, and they don't have the scale of Kroger or HEB to knock prices down anywhere near them, thus they must buy lower quality goods to hit the same price point. It's a dangerous game to bet against Jeff Bezos losing because Amazon lacks scale and problems hitting price points. Amazon may not have the grocery scale of Kroger today, but it also has billions of dollars to spend, a different cost structure and no need to compete with existing grocery chains completely on price (it's a different service, Kroger won't be at my door within two hours).

thedarkginger 10y ago

Since the article stresses repeatedly that Amazon is all-in on produce... I think this is a big question for their ML approach. One of the annoying parts of not-really-self-checkout that is available in big grocery stores today is that you have to scroll through a screen, choose the correct brand (i.e. Dole Banana), and then weigh it before it prices your order. Wonder what their strategy is to price variable weight products (i.e. produce) without introducing new friction into the user experience

trome 10y ago
Amazon will likely pre-weigh the items and give each a price embedded barcode, though it will be quite labor intensive even with the $100k wrap and weigh machines you can buy today.
komali2 10y ago
They might go the way of Trader Joe's and just charge a blanket price per "piece" of produce.
ghaff 10y ago
Yeah. This is one of the reasons why I really don't care for self-checkout in grocery stores. Sure, self-checkout is mostly OK so long as you're swiping small boxes of barcoded stuff. But get to produce and it's a mess. I basically won't use self-checkout if I have any non-barcoded merchandise. (Which basically describes every time I go to a grocery store.)
- twothamendment 10y ago
  Yes - no bar code? I won't self check, but also the large items that won't fit in the bag. I learned the hard way that it can take too long for them to get the self checkout lane to stop crying about how I didn't put a 10' pipe in the bag. Unless I have one or two well marked, small items, I avoid the self checkout.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    The particular fascination of big box home improvement stores has seemed a bit odd given the number of items that don't fit with the model. Sure a lot of small purchases do but many don't.

alasdair_ 10y ago

I do. I order from Amazon Fresh every week. The reason is simple: after fifteen weeks of having Safeway deliver my food, not a single time did they deliver all of the items I actually ordered.