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Every other retailer handing their destiny to Instacart and becoming undifferentiated warehouses of goods makes tons of sense for Instacart, but little sense fo
by crabasa 9y ago
Every other retailer handing their destiny to Instacart and becoming undifferentiated warehouses of goods makes tons of sense for Instacart, but little sense for the retailers.
Sure, a bunch of small/desperate retailers will do this in the short term, but the small handful that will still be around in 5-10 years know that owning the direct relationship with the customer is non-negotiable.
- ativzzz 9y agoWhat direct relationship do groceries have with customers? Only those small local ones do. There is no relationship. I buy the best food at the cheapest cost. That's it.
- jklein11 9y agoHow do you determine what the best food is or the cheapest cost for that matter? Do you comparison shop at different supermarkets to figure out what the highest quality food is for the lowest price? If you are like me you did that one or two times when you moved to a new area, but then stick to buying everything from the same store which I thought had the best quality food for the best price in general. The relationship that I have with that grocery store keeps me from shopping around prices at other locations.
- icebraining 9y agoI have to say, I don't know anyone that always goes to same grocery store. Maybe it's because almost everyone I know is working-class, often hand-to-mouth, or because our stores are usually within 30m walking distance, but we all know which products tend to be cheaper on each stores and make trips to each depending on our needs. Comparison shopping is vital if you want to have a decent variety of foodstuffs on a tight budget.
- ghaff 9y agoI honestly don't really comparison shop in a meaningful way beyond a generalized Whole Foods tends to have high prices. Market Basket tends to have cheaper prices. But I definitely shop at different stores based on what I'm buying and what's convenient as well as farm stands etc.
- tesseract 9y ago> [Does one] comparison shop at different supermarkets to figure out what the highest quality food is for the lowest price? No, of course not. That's what the weekly newspaper flyers are for. On the other hand if one is relatively well off, then the strategy you propose of picking a store that seems like an overall good value and sticking to it may make more sense than spending valuable time poring over grocery store flyers and making trips to multiple stores. This difference in behavior (combined with coupon clipping) is pretty much the quintessential example of how retailers can implement price discrimination - i.e. charging higher prices to those with a greater income or greater willingness to spend.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoInstacart should pivot to a delivery platform enabling other grocers, not running their own last mile operation. Amazon-level supply chain management and logistics as a service/consultancy.
- maxerickson 9y agoLike Rosie? https://www.rosieapp.com/ https://www.rosieapp.com/
- gogopuppygogo 9y agoSafeway uses Rosie in Sacramento and its a terrible experience. Often they show inventory that isn't in stock and as someone who cares about the way things look, the overall website looks like 1998 wants it's tables back. Amazon started doing grocery delivery in the Sacramento area this year and I haven't touched Safeway again since. With the Whole Foods purchase I cannot wait for them to completely change how I buy food.
- pishpash 9y agoThen that doesn't make sense for Instacart. One or the other will lose.
- stale2002 9y agoNot necessarily. Does grub hub as a platform mean that restaurants lose?
- gogopuppygogo 9y agoYour comment reminds me of wat Ingram Micro has done to build a gigantic business. They serve as a logistics and support system for a bunch of small retailers/service providers that add value at the local level. Could be that Instacart does the same thing. Providing value and supply chain for smaller stores.