5 ms·

Good riddance. Most people just want to buy mundane household items without having to solve knapsack problems.

ketamine__ 6y ago
That's a great way to put it.
bombcar 6y ago
The only time I ordered from it I tried (and did pretty well) to fill the box with the cheapest most dense things I could find.
wkearney99 6y ago
SPOT ON. Of the few times I used it I hated it enough to just go use a regular grocery and some 3rd party shopper service.
jonas21 6y ago
I think it was a product from a different era. When Prime Pantry launched, Amazon hadn't acquired Whole Foods, and they didn't have a story for last-mile delivery yet. So they had to ship your order from a warehouse, and the only way to do that profitably on low-margin grocery items was to batch them up into a large order in a box of uniform dimensions. The fact that they no longer need to do this speaks to how far Amazon's logistics have come over the last 7 years.
- ubertoop 6y ago
  Among the growing list of documentaries I would love to watch, but have yet to find, Amazon's logistlics solutions is one at the top. Would be very cool to get a deep look at how all the various types of orders are handled.
  - bananaheel 6y ago
    This is more of a capturing of current state than a full blown documentary. I still learned a lot about amazon’s logistics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk
    - ubertoop 6y ago
      This is great, thanks!
  - lathiat 6y ago
    Wendover Productions - How Amazon's Super-Complex Shipping System Works (18m49s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk Would also suggest watching pretty much everything else on the channel.
    - dave5104 6y ago
      +1 for Wendover. Haven't seen the Amazon video myself yet, but the channel in general has a lot of videos that I think HN users would find interesting.
    - ubertoop 6y ago
      Awesome, thank you!
  - spacemanmatt 6y ago
    The shipping companies guard their operations somewhat zealously. A lot of present company could learn a ton by being present as an engineer, but they keep even dedicated warehouse employees in a frustratingly low-information position.
- rendaw 6y ago
  This doesn't make sense to me. They've always had a solution to batching: minimum order size for free shipping. They've always had plenty of low margin items. When they launched pantry here a couple years ago suddenly stuff I was _already_ buying regularly on Amazon (pasta, tomato paste, olive oil) I was blocked from buying unless I signed up for pantry and filled a box.
- pasttense01 6y ago
  Prime Pantry covered the whole country--including rural America. Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh are only in parts of urban America--and doesn't service rural America at all.
aaomidi 6y ago
This is such an absolutely perfect quote.
michaelpb 6y ago
Ahahah, well for at least a year now they had dropped the whole box filling aspects, which made it more or less identical to shopping for anything else. Honestly the only difference then is how it was shipped and what items were available. That said, I do miss the "Buy 6 items in this category for $6 off" discounts, especially the few times that there were items for less than a dollar in that category. A couple years back I scored absurd amount of Spaghetti Os this way, paying effectively negative money. The only downside is I ended up with a lot of Spaghetti Os :'(
- toast0 6y ago
  > A couple years back I scored absurd amount of Spaghetti Os this way, paying effectively negative money. The only downside is I ended up with a lot of Spaghetti Os :'( Experiences like this have taught me to be careful about over optimizing. If I want one of something, and can't use (or don't want to use) more than one, it doesn't matter if buying two (or more) costs less than buying one; I should just buy one.
  - tomcam 6y ago
    You want to be a Spaghetti Os bigot, you go right ahead
  - michaelpb 6y ago
    Yup, and often those tempting bulk discounts, if calculated, only end up saving a few cents or a dollar or something, so the trade off becomes -- Do you want to be payed 50 cents to store extra supplies at your house? Sometimes that's a good trade-off, but often it isn't. Bulk-buying mentality is so prevalent in the US, it can sometimes be hard to avoid, and I think US urban planning has a lot to do with it as well - e.g. in many cities I've lived in the US, it would take longer to walk to my car than to walk to a grocery store when I was living outside the US, so you get trained to focus on economizing trips.
    - ajford 6y ago
      Some of it is holdover from various economic depressions that are holding on tight to our collective habits. My wife and I both favor bulk shopping for a majority of our household goods, and when we pondered why, it came down to our families having done the same and followed that thread to our grand/great-grand parents that lived through the great depression. Having bulk food/household goods means that at any point, if income halts for any reason, we still have X number of meals/tp rolls/litter changes before we enter the danger zone. That was reassuring when we were living paycheck to paycheck. I do agree on urban planning being a part of it as well. It's a 15min drive to my closest grocery store, and 10 minutes of that is driving out of my neighborhood. Walking to the store is nearly impractical, and generally not safe due to the lack of sidewalks for a fair stretch of the main road.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

That's a great way to put it.

The only time I ordered from it I tried (and did pretty well) to fill the box with the cheapest most dense things I could find.

wkearney99 6y ago

SPOT ON. Of the few times I used it I hated it enough to just go use a regular grocery and some 3rd party shopper service.

jonas21 6y ago

I think it was a product from a different era. When Prime Pantry launched, Amazon hadn't acquired Whole Foods, and they didn't have a story for last-mile delivery yet. So they had to ship your order from a warehouse, and the only way to do that profitably on low-margin grocery items was to batch them up into a large order in a box of uniform dimensions. The fact that they no longer need to do this speaks to how far Amazon's logistics have come over the last 7 years.

ubertoop 6y ago
Among the growing list of documentaries I would love to watch, but have yet to find, Amazon's logistlics solutions is one at the top. Would be very cool to get a deep look at how all the various types of orders are handled.
- bananaheel 6y ago
  This is more of a capturing of current state than a full blown documentary. I still learned a lot about amazon’s logistics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk
  - ubertoop 6y ago
    This is great, thanks!
- lathiat 6y ago
  Wendover Productions - How Amazon's Super-Complex Shipping System Works (18m49s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk Would also suggest watching pretty much everything else on the channel.
  - dave5104 6y ago
    +1 for Wendover. Haven't seen the Amazon video myself yet, but the channel in general has a lot of videos that I think HN users would find interesting.
  - ubertoop 6y ago
    Awesome, thank you!
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  The shipping companies guard their operations somewhat zealously. A lot of present company could learn a ton by being present as an engineer, but they keep even dedicated warehouse employees in a frustratingly low-information position.
rendaw 6y ago
This doesn't make sense to me. They've always had a solution to batching: minimum order size for free shipping. They've always had plenty of low margin items. When they launched pantry here a couple years ago suddenly stuff I was _already_ buying regularly on Amazon (pasta, tomato paste, olive oil) I was blocked from buying unless I signed up for pantry and filled a box.
pasttense01 6y ago
Prime Pantry covered the whole country--including rural America. Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh are only in parts of urban America--and doesn't service rural America at all.

aaomidi 6y ago

This is such an absolutely perfect quote.

michaelpb 6y ago

Ahahah, well for at least a year now they had dropped the whole box filling aspects, which made it more or less identical to shopping for anything else. Honestly the only difference then is how it was shipped and what items were available. That said, I do miss the "Buy 6 items in this category for $6 off" discounts, especially the few times that there were items for less than a dollar in that category. A couple years back I scored absurd amount of Spaghetti Os this way, paying effectively negative money. The only downside is I ended up with a lot of Spaghetti Os :'(

toast0 6y ago
> A couple years back I scored absurd amount of Spaghetti Os this way, paying effectively negative money. The only downside is I ended up with a lot of Spaghetti Os :'( Experiences like this have taught me to be careful about over optimizing. If I want one of something, and can't use (or don't want to use) more than one, it doesn't matter if buying two (or more) costs less than buying one; I should just buy one.
- tomcam 6y ago
  You want to be a Spaghetti Os bigot, you go right ahead
- michaelpb 6y ago
  Yup, and often those tempting bulk discounts, if calculated, only end up saving a few cents or a dollar or something, so the trade off becomes -- Do you want to be payed 50 cents to store extra supplies at your house? Sometimes that's a good trade-off, but often it isn't. Bulk-buying mentality is so prevalent in the US, it can sometimes be hard to avoid, and I think US urban planning has a lot to do with it as well - e.g. in many cities I've lived in the US, it would take longer to walk to my car than to walk to a grocery store when I was living outside the US, so you get trained to focus on economizing trips.
  - ajford 6y ago
    Some of it is holdover from various economic depressions that are holding on tight to our collective habits. My wife and I both favor bulk shopping for a majority of our household goods, and when we pondered why, it came down to our families having done the same and followed that thread to our grand/great-grand parents that lived through the great depression. Having bulk food/household goods means that at any point, if income halts for any reason, we still have X number of meals/tp rolls/litter changes before we enter the danger zone. That was reassuring when we were living paycheck to paycheck. I do agree on urban planning being a part of it as well. It's a 15min drive to my closest grocery store, and 10 minutes of that is driving out of my neighborhood. Walking to the store is nearly impractical, and generally not safe due to the lack of sidewalks for a fair stretch of the main road.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]