7 ms·

While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half

While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century, and as such I have a difficult time imagining them doing a good job executing on something like this. I've also tested the majority of the meal and food delivery services out there, and my experience meshes well with the above: the local supermarket chain in some ways provides a better offering than anyone (as they should–you're absolutely right about that), but for a few years now they've persisted in making sure the actual execution is the worst I've experienced of any service. I can't see that changing until they completely overhaul their hiring practices and put sufficient processes in place to ensure good execution. (For the record, Blue Apron strikes me as a pretty mediocre product at a pretty uninteresting price, executed in a pretty bad manner.)

sharkmerry 9y ago
>> While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. just to play devil's avocado, Amazon's advantage was not having the overhead of stores, now they just purchased whole foods. Seems as if they are moving towards being a supermarket
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- handedness 9y ago
  Sorry, I was referring to how it was obvious to so many that Barnes & Noble and Borders would crush this fledgling website founded by the kook who set out in a van to compete with them.
  - hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
    > Sorry, I was referring to how it was obvious to so many that Barnes & Noble and Borders would crush this fledgling website founded by the kook who set out in a van to compete with them. I remember Amazon's launch quite well, and I don't remember any of that sentiment. The first time I used Amazon I remember thinking "Wow, books are the perfect thing to sell online." I feel like it's become part of a standard origin mythology to play up the founder as "some kook with a crazy dream" that everyone else thought was insane. I think that's rarely the case, and is instead played up in an effort of founder worship.
  - code_duck 9y ago
    There was some of that... generally, skepticism that internet startups would become large enough to challenge businesses like Walmart, ever. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/09/24/revisiting-amazon-dot-bomb-16-years-later/#6b40b816b08f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/09/24/revisiti... And also people saying things like tiny businesses of people with bookstores in their spare time will make Amazon obsolete... https://mobile.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/opinion/foreign-affairs-amazonyou.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/opinion/foreign-affair... Ah, Thomas Friedman. Thanks for the advice to not buy amazon stock in 1999.
    - imron 9y ago
      Out of curiosity, I went to have a look at AMZN's stock price at the date the article was published, to see how the stock price during the heady heights of the dotcom bubble compared to today. Interestingly, if you view the entire stock history price chart, the dotcom bubble is barely a blip.
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        IMO, the right way to look at long-term performance of an investment is on a semi-log chart. (Day or week charts, I prefer linear; anything 3 month or longer, I prefer semi-log.) Semi-log (where constant percentage changes are constant-sized), it's more than a blip. Linear (where constant dollar changes are constant-sized) charting hides past market moves if the overall bias has been up and exaggerates past market moves if the overall bias has been down. This can lead investors to improperly discount the pain/gain cycle that happened over that time period. Linear charting: http://bit.ly/2tk5Ulj http://bit.ly/2tk5Ulj Semi log: http://bit.ly/2sJs7ec http://bit.ly/2sJs7ec
      - code_duck 9y ago
        Now that I also actually take a look, while his theory has not panned out the way he thought, it is true that Amazon would have been a poor investment for most of the decade following 2000.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I agree with hn_throwaway_. Amazon having no chance in people's eyes and being discarded by everyone seems to be an exaggeration. I wasn't even in middle school/junior high when I and some other classmates started using Amazon. We loved using it for getting books. There was no weirdness about it. In fact, in my memories, using Amazon was completely normal and seemed like a good idea. This would be in 2000 and 2001.
    - taysic 9y ago
      Obvious to a young person like you. Clearly Amazon understood their market. But it was not obvious to entrenched businesses and all investors. Even Warren Buffet admits he made a mistake about Google.
      - skinnymuch 9y ago
        Warren Buffett said those things very recently. He has always been against most tech and web companies because he doesn't understand the space. Buffett was already entering his 70s once the dot com bubble burst and you could look at companies in a better sense. I can see a good example being used. I don't think Buffett is one though.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Gaelan 9y ago
  > devil's avocado I can imagine the headlines. “AVOCADO TOAST FAD MAY BE LINKED TO DEVIL WORSHIP”
- dilemma 9y ago
  Amazon's digital/technological backend lets them put WF retail spaces to more productive use, so it's still an asset and not a liability.
trimbo 9y ago
> The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century, and as such I have a difficult time imagining them doing a good job executing on something like this. I don't get what you mean by "ensure good execution" because it takes so little for grocers to successfully move into a market like Blue Apron's. 20 years ago, grocers destroyed the "fast casual roasted chicken" restaurants (Boston Market, Kenny Rogers Roasters) by simply buying chicken roaster machines and adding hot prepared food to the deli counter... and charging about a third the price. I'd hazard a guess that Safeway's chicken isn't as yummy[1] as Kenny Rogers' Roasters but that didn't stop anything. So what about their execution is required here beyond "cheap and available where you already shop"? No one can use Blue Apron without a regular grocer in their routine already. Grocers successfully tapping into this higher margin product line seems inevitable, even if done with lower quality (is that what you mean?) [1] - Or their neon sign as bright
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > So what about their execution is required here beyond "cheap and available where you already shop"? It's not 20 years ago, and “online for home delivery” is increasingly where people already shop. And, it's easy to displace a business that requires a trip out with one that requires a trip out, but one you were likely taking already. Harder to do that with something that doesn't require a trip out at all. > No one can use Blue Apron without a regular grocer in their routine already. Yes, you can. Cooking oil, salt, and black pepper—the only ingredients BA doesn't usually supply—don't require a traditional grocery or even one of the limited-area perishable delivery services to acquire. If BA is your only home cooking, you literally never need to enter a traditional grocery store, or order from a similar full-grown online delivery service. Google Express or Amazon in one of the areas where they don't have grocery delivery will work fine.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    A life where Blue Apron is literally the only food you eat at home besides takeout seems dystopian.
sheri 9y ago
> While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. The difference to me is that Amazon competed aggressively on price and selection. You could get books or items which you just couldn't get in a local Borders. You could also get the same item significantly cheaper than a Borders or Barnes and Noble. Blue Aprons value lies in the recipe and the convenience of having all the ingredients picked out for you, but charges a significant premium. I would like this as a way to try new recipes or expand my range (e.g. I don't stock ingredients/spices etc at home for Chinese food), but not as my go-to option for daily meals. It may not be as easy for someone like whole-foods or Safeway to generate recipes, efficiently package/put-together ingredients etc, but I also feel the value addition is much less than someone like Amazon's was: More items and much cheaper.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  All they need to do is parter with/acquire something like AllRecipes and then they're pretty much set.
leesalminen 9y ago
Do you have any recommendations on similar services? We tried Blue Apron and found that their only shipping options were FedEx Home (consistently arrives after 10PM) and OnTrac (consistently isn't delivered at all).
- handedness 9y ago
  None that we found good enough to stick with, unfortunately. The market still feels wide open. Aside: I've never heard a single good thing about OnTrac.
ceejayoz 9y ago
> The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century... You really should visit a Wegmans.
- just4themoney 9y ago
  And pretty much every grocery store on the East Coast... they are all scrambling to play "follow the leader" with Wegmans.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I've visited a few times and I'm not sure what's so special.
pkulak 9y ago
A store in my area (Fred Meyer) that sells about everything, recently started pushing this service where you shop online and then pull into this special parking space where someone brings you your stuff and loads it into your trunk. I thought it was a great idea, so at about 3 I loaded everything I needed for dinner into my online shopping cart and went to check out. Turns out the earliest they could have it ready for me was the next day. I wasn't even expecting to have to pick a time frame at all. I figured I would just see some message about it being ready in 30 minutes, or some other short time frame. You'd be amazed at how good entrenched companies are at completely failing to understand what their competitive advantage even is, let alone using it.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Hannafords has a service like this too though I haven't looked into it. Seems sort of a limited use case for me. But at a minimum needs to be, if not ready in an hour, at least order at lunch and swing by on the way home.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Wow that's upsetting! Home Depot and Bloomingdale's are both really good about same-day pickup of online orders.
arethuza 9y ago
"The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century" UK supermarkets seem to have made huge changes, online shopping and delivery is really common, self scanning (which I always use), loyalty points used across multiple vendors (e.g. getting points for paying utility bills), "metro" urban stores etc.
- tomw2005 9y ago
  While that is all true Amazon Fresh has completely blown that out of the water for me. Though it is only available in Greater London atm.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    What are the benefits of Amazon Fresh? Edit: I'm not doubting that there are some - just wondering how it differentiates itself from other players in this market, particularly when Amazon isn't a brand I associate with product quality.
ghaff 9y ago
I'll add to what others have said that, for anyone vaguely interested in quality and variety of food, a grocery store of 50 years ago would be this ocean of poor quality produce, canned food, Wonder bread, etc. A lot of that is the transformation of US food supply chains but grocery stores are part of that.

sharkmerry 9y ago

>> While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. just to play devil's avocado, Amazon's advantage was not having the overhead of stores, now they just purchased whole foods. Seems as if they are moving towards being a supermarket

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
handedness 9y ago
Sorry, I was referring to how it was obvious to so many that Barnes & Noble and Borders would crush this fledgling website founded by the kook who set out in a van to compete with them.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  > Sorry, I was referring to how it was obvious to so many that Barnes & Noble and Borders would crush this fledgling website founded by the kook who set out in a van to compete with them. I remember Amazon's launch quite well, and I don't remember any of that sentiment. The first time I used Amazon I remember thinking "Wow, books are the perfect thing to sell online." I feel like it's become part of a standard origin mythology to play up the founder as "some kook with a crazy dream" that everyone else thought was insane. I think that's rarely the case, and is instead played up in an effort of founder worship.
- code_duck 9y ago
  There was some of that... generally, skepticism that internet startups would become large enough to challenge businesses like Walmart, ever. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/09/24/revisiting-amazon-dot-bomb-16-years-later/#6b40b816b08f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/09/24/revisiti... And also people saying things like tiny businesses of people with bookstores in their spare time will make Amazon obsolete... https://mobile.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/opinion/foreign-affairs-amazonyou.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/1999/02/26/opinion/foreign-affair... Ah, Thomas Friedman. Thanks for the advice to not buy amazon stock in 1999.
  - imron 9y ago
    Out of curiosity, I went to have a look at AMZN's stock price at the date the article was published, to see how the stock price during the heady heights of the dotcom bubble compared to today. Interestingly, if you view the entire stock history price chart, the dotcom bubble is barely a blip.
    - sokoloff 9y ago
      IMO, the right way to look at long-term performance of an investment is on a semi-log chart. (Day or week charts, I prefer linear; anything 3 month or longer, I prefer semi-log.) Semi-log (where constant percentage changes are constant-sized), it's more than a blip. Linear (where constant dollar changes are constant-sized) charting hides past market moves if the overall bias has been up and exaggerates past market moves if the overall bias has been down. This can lead investors to improperly discount the pain/gain cycle that happened over that time period. Linear charting: http://bit.ly/2tk5Ulj http://bit.ly/2tk5Ulj Semi log: http://bit.ly/2sJs7ec http://bit.ly/2sJs7ec
    - code_duck 9y ago
      Now that I also actually take a look, while his theory has not panned out the way he thought, it is true that Amazon would have been a poor investment for most of the decade following 2000.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I agree with hn_throwaway_. Amazon having no chance in people's eyes and being discarded by everyone seems to be an exaggeration. I wasn't even in middle school/junior high when I and some other classmates started using Amazon. We loved using it for getting books. There was no weirdness about it. In fact, in my memories, using Amazon was completely normal and seemed like a good idea. This would be in 2000 and 2001.
  - taysic 9y ago
    Obvious to a young person like you. Clearly Amazon understood their market. But it was not obvious to entrenched businesses and all investors. Even Warren Buffet admits he made a mistake about Google.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      Warren Buffett said those things very recently. He has always been against most tech and web companies because he doesn't understand the space. Buffett was already entering his 70s once the dot com bubble burst and you could look at companies in a better sense. I can see a good example being used. I don't think Buffett is one though.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Gaelan 9y ago
> devil's avocado I can imagine the headlines. “AVOCADO TOAST FAD MAY BE LINKED TO DEVIL WORSHIP”
dilemma 9y ago
Amazon's digital/technological backend lets them put WF retail spaces to more productive use, so it's still an asset and not a liability.

trimbo 9y ago

> The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century, and as such I have a difficult time imagining them doing a good job executing on something like this. I don't get what you mean by "ensure good execution" because it takes so little for grocers to successfully move into a market like Blue Apron's. 20 years ago, grocers destroyed the "fast casual roasted chicken" restaurants (Boston Market, Kenny Rogers Roasters) by simply buying chicken roaster machines and adding hot prepared food to the deli counter... and charging about a third the price. I'd hazard a guess that Safeway's chicken isn't as yummy[1] as Kenny Rogers' Roasters but that didn't stop anything. So what about their execution is required here beyond "cheap and available where you already shop"? No one can use Blue Apron without a regular grocer in their routine already. Grocers successfully tapping into this higher margin product line seems inevitable, even if done with lower quality (is that what you mean?) [1] - Or their neon sign as bright

dragonwriter 9y ago
> So what about their execution is required here beyond "cheap and available where you already shop"? It's not 20 years ago, and “online for home delivery” is increasingly where people already shop. And, it's easy to displace a business that requires a trip out with one that requires a trip out, but one you were likely taking already. Harder to do that with something that doesn't require a trip out at all. > No one can use Blue Apron without a regular grocer in their routine already. Yes, you can. Cooking oil, salt, and black pepper—the only ingredients BA doesn't usually supply—don't require a traditional grocery or even one of the limited-area perishable delivery services to acquire. If BA is your only home cooking, you literally never need to enter a traditional grocery store, or order from a similar full-grown online delivery service. Google Express or Amazon in one of the areas where they don't have grocery delivery will work fine.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  A life where Blue Apron is literally the only food you eat at home besides takeout seems dystopian.

sheri 9y ago

> While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon. The difference to me is that Amazon competed aggressively on price and selection. You could get books or items which you just couldn't get in a local Borders. You could also get the same item significantly cheaper than a Borders or Barnes and Noble. Blue Aprons value lies in the recipe and the convenience of having all the ingredients picked out for you, but charges a significant premium. I would like this as a way to try new recipes or expand my range (e.g. I don't stock ingredients/spices etc at home for Chinese food), but not as my go-to option for daily meals. It may not be as easy for someone like whole-foods or Safeway to generate recipes, efficiently package/put-together ingredients etc, but I also feel the value addition is much less than someone like Amazon's was: More items and much cheaper.

emodendroket 9y ago
All they need to do is parter with/acquire something like AllRecipes and then they're pretty much set.

leesalminen 9y ago

Do you have any recommendations on similar services? We tried Blue Apron and found that their only shipping options were FedEx Home (consistently arrives after 10PM) and OnTrac (consistently isn't delivered at all).

handedness 9y ago
None that we found good enough to stick with, unfortunately. The market still feels wide open. Aside: I've never heard a single good thing about OnTrac.

ceejayoz 9y ago

> The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century... You really should visit a Wegmans.

just4themoney 9y ago
And pretty much every grocery store on the East Coast... they are all scrambling to play "follow the leader" with Wegmans.
emodendroket 9y ago
I've visited a few times and I'm not sure what's so special.

pkulak 9y ago

A store in my area (Fred Meyer) that sells about everything, recently started pushing this service where you shop online and then pull into this special parking space where someone brings you your stuff and loads it into your trunk. I thought it was a great idea, so at about 3 I loaded everything I needed for dinner into my online shopping cart and went to check out. Turns out the earliest they could have it ready for me was the next day. I wasn't even expecting to have to pick a time frame at all. I figured I would just see some message about it being ready in 30 minutes, or some other short time frame. You'd be amazed at how good entrenched companies are at completely failing to understand what their competitive advantage even is, let alone using it.

ghaff 9y ago
Hannafords has a service like this too though I haven't looked into it. Seems sort of a limited use case for me. But at a minimum needs to be, if not ready in an hour, at least order at lunch and swing by on the way home.
magic_beans 9y ago
Wow that's upsetting! Home Depot and Bloomingdale's are both really good about same-day pickup of online orders.

arethuza 9y ago

"The supermarkets have changed very little about the way they've done business in the last half-century" UK supermarkets seem to have made huge changes, online shopping and delivery is really common, self scanning (which I always use), loyalty points used across multiple vendors (e.g. getting points for paying utility bills), "metro" urban stores etc.

tomw2005 9y ago
While that is all true Amazon Fresh has completely blown that out of the water for me. Though it is only available in Greater London atm.
- arethuza 9y ago
  What are the benefits of Amazon Fresh? Edit: I'm not doubting that there are some - just wondering how it differentiates itself from other players in this market, particularly when Amazon isn't a brand I associate with product quality.

ghaff 9y ago

I'll add to what others have said that, for anyone vaguely interested in quality and variety of food, a grocery store of 50 years ago would be this ocean of poor quality produce, canned food, Wonder bread, etc. A lot of that is the transformation of US food supply chains but grocery stores are part of that.