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Smart move. Whole Foods has a limited appeal. It's not just price - sometimes people want to buy Cheetos or pizza rolls that don't taste like cardboard. Slig

Smart move. Whole Foods has a limited appeal. It's not just price - sometimes people want to buy Cheetos or pizza rolls that don't taste like cardboard. Slightly related thought: Why not design a store which allows instant fulfillment from a wide selection of goods while taking up less ground level space? I could see an Amazon/Walmart/etc store where you reserve the shelf space for presentation, but the goods are actually stored on higher floors and delivered to the customer upon checkout? Real-estate is a premium in many markets and probably keeps out super-center style stores. If you could build up, without having to extend retail niceties to all floors, you might make the costs work.

bduerst 8y ago
Do we really need another grocery store chain though? Whole Foods cornered the high-end grocery market (or created it, if you want to debate). Introducing yet another generic grocery chain to the already saturated, age-old red ocean market doesn't seem reasonable unless they're trying to create walk-up warehouses for online grocery delivery.
- 01100011 8y ago
  I welcome Amazon's attempt to bring changes to the existing grocery store market. Maybe they'll figure something out, or maybe they'll fail. Either way, I'm happy to have more options as a consumer.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    >have more options as a consumer Not if they succeed. The grocery market is only so large, and if Amazon pushes other other grocery chains, consumers now have less choice.
gamegoblin 8y ago
Yes, I imagine a store in which you just walk around and scan QR codes on your phone and your bagged groceries are waiting for you when you walk out (all paid for on the app, too, so no checkout).
- petra 8y ago
  That's a good plan. But since the store size is 35000 sq.ft., they'll surely do something beyond that. But what ? And they're going to build a lot of these stores, fast. They must. Or else, Walmart. EDIT: Why so much space? Sometimes you need stuff from the grocery today. Other times you can order online. Sometimes you need both. This stores will serve both roles.
- bduerst 8y ago
  Until people put things in their bag/cart that they didn't scan the code for, and you're not going to RFID tag an entire grocery store inventory that already has razor thin margins. Supposedly Amazon's machine-vision store is solving this though.
  - what_ever 8y ago
    I don't think the parent comment means people putting things in the bag. They just walk with phone, scan the items they want to buy which get added to bag automatically by robot/someone else and customer just walks to the counter at the end to pick up their bag.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      I see, my bad. Still, why even walk around empty aisles full of food pictures then? It seems like a strange UI for something that could just happen in the app before you even get to the store. Seems like a waste of space too since everything will be itemized and stored in the back on shelves as well. I understand that user behavior doesn't turn on a dime but Amazon customers are already used to ordering online.
      - 01100011 8y ago
        I'm saying have items for display to allow for browsing. You don't need shelf space for 24 boxes of cereal - you keep them upstairs. The aisles can be narrower(no carts, shallower shelves) and you still have the experience of browsing and getting people to make impulse decisions. It's like a hybrid between browsing Amazon and being in a real store.
Someone1234 8y ago
Argos in the UK works this way. It is slow.
btmiller 8y ago
That might work. I envision something close to Ikea (but in a much smaller footprint) where product collection is batched at the end of the store route. In fact, surely they (Ikea) have tossed this idea around. Probably encountered some roadblocks due to the size and weight of some of their furniture offerings. And how about insincere actors who just want to make some heavy furniture fly around the store?
- bpicolo 8y ago
  Unclear how the batching section would be any different from just a grocery store. Grocery stores aren’t display heavy like furniture needs to be, and you can’t condense the packaging
sigstoat 8y ago
> I could see an Amazon/Walmart/etc store where you reserve the shelf space for presentation, but the goods are actually stored on higher floors and delivered to the customer upon checkout? let's you decouple storage location from presentation location. i assume the grocery store knows what items are most frequently purchased together, and ensures they're as far apart as possible in presentation-space. but in this model they could then keep them nearby in storage-space, making it easier for them to load your bag up. (also the instant you walk in, they can probably figure out the things you're most likely to get, and move them to some staging area to go in your bag as soon as you scan it.)

bduerst 8y ago

Do we really need another grocery store chain though? Whole Foods cornered the high-end grocery market (or created it, if you want to debate). Introducing yet another generic grocery chain to the already saturated, age-old red ocean market doesn't seem reasonable unless they're trying to create walk-up warehouses for online grocery delivery.

01100011 8y ago
I welcome Amazon's attempt to bring changes to the existing grocery store market. Maybe they'll figure something out, or maybe they'll fail. Either way, I'm happy to have more options as a consumer.
- bduerst 8y ago
  >have more options as a consumer Not if they succeed. The grocery market is only so large, and if Amazon pushes other other grocery chains, consumers now have less choice.

gamegoblin 8y ago

Yes, I imagine a store in which you just walk around and scan QR codes on your phone and your bagged groceries are waiting for you when you walk out (all paid for on the app, too, so no checkout).

petra 8y ago
That's a good plan. But since the store size is 35000 sq.ft., they'll surely do something beyond that. But what ? And they're going to build a lot of these stores, fast. They must. Or else, Walmart. EDIT: Why so much space? Sometimes you need stuff from the grocery today. Other times you can order online. Sometimes you need both. This stores will serve both roles.
bduerst 8y ago
Until people put things in their bag/cart that they didn't scan the code for, and you're not going to RFID tag an entire grocery store inventory that already has razor thin margins. Supposedly Amazon's machine-vision store is solving this though.
- what_ever 8y ago
  I don't think the parent comment means people putting things in the bag. They just walk with phone, scan the items they want to buy which get added to bag automatically by robot/someone else and customer just walks to the counter at the end to pick up their bag.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    I see, my bad. Still, why even walk around empty aisles full of food pictures then? It seems like a strange UI for something that could just happen in the app before you even get to the store. Seems like a waste of space too since everything will be itemized and stored in the back on shelves as well. I understand that user behavior doesn't turn on a dime but Amazon customers are already used to ordering online.
    - 01100011 8y ago
      I'm saying have items for display to allow for browsing. You don't need shelf space for 24 boxes of cereal - you keep them upstairs. The aisles can be narrower(no carts, shallower shelves) and you still have the experience of browsing and getting people to make impulse decisions. It's like a hybrid between browsing Amazon and being in a real store.

Someone1234 8y ago

Argos in the UK works this way. It is slow.

btmiller 8y ago

That might work. I envision something close to Ikea (but in a much smaller footprint) where product collection is batched at the end of the store route. In fact, surely they (Ikea) have tossed this idea around. Probably encountered some roadblocks due to the size and weight of some of their furniture offerings. And how about insincere actors who just want to make some heavy furniture fly around the store?

bpicolo 8y ago
Unclear how the batching section would be any different from just a grocery store. Grocery stores aren’t display heavy like furniture needs to be, and you can’t condense the packaging

sigstoat 8y ago

> I could see an Amazon/Walmart/etc store where you reserve the shelf space for presentation, but the goods are actually stored on higher floors and delivered to the customer upon checkout? let's you decouple storage location from presentation location. i assume the grocery store knows what items are most frequently purchased together, and ensures they're as far apart as possible in presentation-space. but in this model they could then keep them nearby in storage-space, making it easier for them to load your bag up. (also the instant you walk in, they can probably figure out the things you're most likely to get, and move them to some staging area to go in your bag as soon as you scan it.)