22 ms·

It’s hard work to make ordering groceries online so easy

113 points by helloworld 5y ago

neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/QPFJB https://archive.is/QPFJB
bsder 5y ago
Obligatory repost of "Manna": https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
- maxerickson 5y ago
  I'm a creature of habit in a small town, so I hadn't used pickup any before I saw someone jogging through a local big box store with a cart full of totes and knew I didn't want to use it. It seems, uh, unlikely that the stores would try to build a system where the worker gets paid for the time that the customers save.
  - beauzero 5y ago
    We have started shopping at Walmart again for groceries. I just won't take the time to walk in and fight through the crowds. If I can pick it up heck yes.
    - koolba 5y ago
      My personal favorite is order pickup from Home Depot. I think I’ve saved hours of time. Both from not searching through aisles to find what I want (which never seems to be where it’s supposed to be...) and because when something is not actually in stock, you don’t waste a trip to find out.
      - bryantraywick 5y ago
        I just ordered 3 items for in store pickup today from Home Depot and one of them was wrong. That is going to cost me another 40+ minute round trip that I wouldn't have had to make if I would have just gone inside and picked the items myself. There is 0 chance I will be ordering groceries online in the next 10 years.
        Scoundreller 5y ago
        > and one of them was wrong Then you get to play the "how and why was it wrong" game. Was the image online wrong? Did the pick the wrong item? Did the UPC code mis-scan? In my case, it seems like the manufacturer was sloppy and put two different incompatible versions in the same bag. The one I got wasn't even sold by that company. Possibly in a production line change switchover.
      - Symbiote 5y ago
        Doesn't Home Depot show the stock levels for each shop on their website? Just yesterday I wanted something from a Danish equivalent (Silvan). The website said the nearest store to me had 8 in stock, so there's little chance they'll be gone by the time I get there. Many larger (and some smaller) shops have this. https://www.silvan.dk/kram-spaendeskiver-rustfri-a2-m6-12-100-stk?id=2702-9697477 https://www.silvan.dk/kram-spaendeskiver-rustfri-a2-m6-12-10... (click "Click and Collect" and it shows the stock levels. You can deny location access.)
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Home Depot’s site will tell you the location in your store down to Aisle and Bay. It’s very rarely wrong in my experience. I have experienced out of stock (when claimed to be in stock, presumably due to shrinkage in the store).
- CiceroCiceronis 5y ago
  Reminds me of this excellent article: https://rein.pk/replacing-middle-management-with-apis https://rein.pk/replacing-middle-management-with-apis
Animats 5y ago
Webvan, 20 years ago, had the right idea - don't pick from retail stores, use a proper fulfillment center. But they had 3% market share in 30 cities, instead of 30% market share in 3 cities, because their VCs thought the "first mover advantage" was crucial. So they had too much infrastructure for their volume. At Amazon scale, though, that approach works.
- choxi 5y ago
  A lot of the famous dot com busts were basically just ahead of their time: https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1003/gallery.dot_com_busts/ https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1003/gallery... To me these all sound like predecessors to Facebook, Amazon, and Uber
  - code_duck 5y ago
    They may have had similar ideas to those very successful companies, but besides the timing, lacked the talent at execution.
    - sharkweek 5y ago
      I remember in high school learning how to build little websites and thinking, “it sure would be cool if we could build a little online yearbook for our school! Everyone could have their own little profile page!”
      - le-mark 5y ago
        Did you also think “l can then use their personal information to target ads and make $billions!” I wager you did not, because you’re probably not as depraved as some.
        code_duck 5y ago
        I'd tend to think "I could sell ads!", which can lead to that.
Shadonototro 5y ago
the people who actually make things happen should be paid as much as javascript developers their salary is a shame
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  Just so I understand your position: you are saying delivery drivers should be paid the same as software engineers?
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    He said JavaScript developers not software engineers
    - lghh 5y ago
      I don't understand the distinction you're making. Can you explain?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - MispelledToyota 5y ago
        Software Engineers use assembly.
        seattle_spring 5y ago
        Assembly? Ha! A real engineer would write code directly in binary.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Would octal be good enough? (Guess my mother qualifies as a real engineer, but I don't.)
        5y ago
canada_dry 5y ago
Why I won't order dairy/produce/meats/frozen food online: while I'm shopping I'll often see a stack of order boxes with perishable and frozen items slowly saunter through the non-perishable isles - either the picker is ignoring the process, or there isn't one! Plus, I always check to ensure I pickup the longest expiration date possible... pickers I would imagine would do the opposite (i.e. get rid of the store's oldest stock first).
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  > pickers I would imagine would do the opposite (i.e. get rid of the store's oldest stock first). Maybe if they worked for the store, but why would they do that if they worked for an independent service with ratings and customer support? Personally, my experience even with first-party shoppers is that they seem to select for good quality. I've never gotten unpleasant produce or near-expired items. I'm sure it happens, but I'm also sure it produces plenty of support calls.
  - _delirium 5y ago
    I've gotten spoiled or damaged stuff when doing curbside pickup at Target. But it is also pretty easy to get a refund if you click a few buttons in the app and attach a photo. My guess is that in this case, the pickers are optimizing for throughput and not going out of their way to pick better or worse items.
    - zevra 5y ago
      can confirm. I work in a store doing picks. We are all students and generally do not care. If customers aren't looking food + product is being thrown into a cart haphazard. There are a few of us who care a bit but not many. Luckily work for a store that is too inept to track our performance. I can only imagine that this gets worse when employees are monitored.
- nfm 5y ago
  I used to pack shelves for a supermarket and I believe at the time (~15 years ago) we had a two hour window in which perishables could be out of the fridge. Usually we'd wheel out pallets from the stockroom fridge or freezer onto the floor, move all the boxes off the pallet into their rough locations on the floor, and then pack each box into the fridges sequentially (effectively batching up the sorting/locating/carrying work). If stock sat on the floor without getting into the fridge for more than two hours, or in the rare occasion there was a power outage and the fridges or freezers were out for more than two hours, stock had to be written off. All that to say the allowed timeline might be longer than you expect (or desire)!
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
This is frequent result of when two completely independent decision chains meet but are drastically different in every other way. The method by which grocery stores layout items can have a lot of per location variation or in other works per location knowledge. Sure most store changes have it figured out for normal items but like the arrival notes, seasonal and temporary items often have incorrect information. Even worse is when the normal stock location e.g cold beer in the beer isle is limited in capacity so overstock(?) is put in other locations that differ day to day, location to location. Good luck knowing that the overstock location for beer is the soda isle but also sometimes the seasonal area during any holiday or sporting event. The other side of the decision process, are the companies doing these apps which optimize for every variable, make every picker 100% replaceable. It would be interesting if they could incentivize pickers to learn a handful of stores inside and out.
mariojv 5y ago
If using Instacart, consider switching to your local grocer's delivery service instead. It's kind of wild how many people in Texas used Instacart and never knew that H-E-B had their own delivery option. There's generally far less markup for similar service, although the real-time conversation Instacart allows with your shopper is nice. Not nice enough to justify the mark ups for routine shopping, though, IMO.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  HEB does curbside service, but what is their delivery service? I’ve looked, and I haven’t found anything. I’d love to use them instead of InstaCart, but so far as I can tell, there is no such option available to me. This, in Austin, TX, or all places. The HEB “Tech Hub” is here, so we should be the first place to roll out a service like that.
  - Sebguer 5y ago
    https://www.heb.com/static-pages/faq?category=curbside-and-home-delivery&question=where-is-your-delivery-service-available https://www.heb.com/static-pages/faq?category=curbside-and-h... It's limited zip codes, at present.
  - mariojv 5y ago
    On their main page, where it says, "Curbside at your location" in the top right, click that and select delivery. Like another poster mentioned, it may not be in your city. More than likely if you're in Austin, it just isn't in your area. H-E-B's headquarters is actually in San Antonio, where I live, so they may have more options available here. They don't advertise it a ton, but they actually hire a bunch of developers here in SA as well. I don't have the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a 50/50 split between the two cities. My husband works as a developer there at their HQ in San Antonio.
  - brandonscott 5y ago
    HEB is using Favor for deliveries (which they bought a few years ago)
vmception 5y ago
I still want a way to access grocery lists and prepopulate my cart with those items or the nearest equivalent Just like with grocery delivery apps, people were dismissive of the reality where such low effort would be involved and yet in some areas there are only food delivery shoppers anywhere to be seen. this will also be a hit Recipe blogs can allow the users to auto populate their carts on Amazon or other common grocery delivery apps that interface with their local area The nutrition bloggers can just share their entire shopping list for one-click replication People that dont find the discovery aspect of shopping entertaining at all can still have all of the upside without resorting to those prepackaged-meal-but-pretend-to-be-a-chef startups
- code_duck 5y ago
  The “items you’ve bought before” or “add all items on receipt to cart” features help me along these lines.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I want other’s.
- wiglaf1979 5y ago
  Full disclosure, I work for Walmart in IT and specifically several components for the Online Grocery product. Ask and ye shall receive. Buzzfeed's Tasty and Walmart have an integration that sounds like what you are looking for. Build a grocery list manually as well as from recipes in the Tasty app. Then when you "checkout" in the Tasty app it'll pre populate your grocery list in the Walmart app. You also select which Walmart you are shopping at so it shifts some of the items around to match like substitutes for what the recipe calls for. https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/08/19/walmart-and-buzzfeeds-tasty-stir-together-meal-planning-list-making-and-grocery-shopping-in-one-easy-solution-shoppable-recipes https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/08/19/walmart-an...
  - vmception 5y ago
    Great thank you! I’ll check the progress of that in my area
gnubet 5y ago
Only Daisy cottage cheese will do!
stevebmark 5y ago
I would love to see Instacart shoppers banned from grocery store main areas and instead use a coordinated pickup system out of sight, where they wait longer, have worse picks, and the grocery can do more organized stock providing. Instacart shoppers are a nuisance, they leave carts full of items in the middle of isles while they stare at their phones to try to figure out the item they need to find next. They block fish/meat/deli ordering as they try to figure out what the customer asked for. As someone whose main option for food is regular grocery runs, I want stores to be optimized for people like me, not food delivery.
tsjq 5y ago
In India, Amazon owns a retail store chain. And does the ordering really well. I'm happy with it. Other standalone supermarkets recieve orders through whatsapp, and deliver to doorstep. This is convenient when you know what you need. If needed they call you back to clarify .
midasuni 5y ago
I’ve been buying groceries twice a week online from various U.K. supermarkets for well over a decade. Not everything always works - I remember a time in 2006 when they didn’t turn up in the prescribed slot, we left the house then they phoned irate when they arrived 90 minutes after the end of the delivery slot. Obviously there can be substitutions too, sometimes they’re fine, sometimes they aren’t But on the whole of just works. Even at the start of the pandemic when demand was high, regular customers like me were prioritised. The impression I get is this isn’t the case in the US?
- swarnie_ 5y ago
  I tried doing online deliveries while at university back in 07-09 and found the whole ordeal so rubbish that i've never gone back to it even during the pandemic. Glad to hear they smoothed it out a little. I wonder if the US is better or worse for using middleman start-up services where as picking nad delivery here is traditionally done in house.
- zyemuzu 5y ago
  I once ordered black pudding and received a two pack of chocolate sponge puddings. I think it was Tesco. That was genuinely funny though, and in all my experience has been good. Also, call me a frugal jerk, but I spent about 2 years adding dots to my Gmail address to get £15 off as a new customer offer every time. It got a bit awkward when the same delivery driver had to give me the 'new customer' spiel and said he was sure he'd been here before.
- nencrystation 5y ago
  Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years. Like the healthcare debate with less politics. "kroger should buy some vans, hire more people, and start a website" is pretty much the end of it. (I assume krogers is a supermarket)
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    >Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years As a non-American who is disproportionately aware of US culture and issues even though I've only been there a couple of times, I think it's part of a general pattern. My pet theory is that the combination of the USA's size, relative geographical isolation, historically strong economy, and youngish history have led to a critical mass of its population being completely unaware that there are certain things that can be done differently and arguably better, as they are done elsewhere. Most of the developed World is composed of either small neighbouring countries between which ideas are more easily shared, countries with long histories and limited resources that have had the need to improve their efficiencies and learned from their pasts, or countries who had to make concerted efforts to either become develop or recover after catastrophic war. Meanwhile, the population of the USA (and to a lesser extent Canada, and maybe Australia and NZ) has had little exposure to alternative ways of doing things, and no motivation to do so—everything is fine. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following things that are done better outside the US but most Americans are unaware that alternatives are even possible: e-payment methods and cheap bank transfers, home insulation, vote counting, prices including sales tax, intersections (roundabouts vs 4-way STOPs), electrical plugs, kick-resistant front doors, punch-resistant interior walls, toilets that don't need a plunger handy, SSNs not being a de-facto immutable password, etc. I've sometimes been tempted to compile a detailed list of articles on each of these things on a blog, but not being American I feel it would be very unfair and would seem gratuitously condescending on my part. I hope this doesn't come across as dismissive or an attempt at a flame-war, it's just my observation. I have nothing against the USA, and I am absolutely not implying that no good ideas come from the USA! Many great ideas were born in the USA, and are then adopted or adapted by other countries. The difference is that the flow doesn't seem to go the other way.
opportune 5y ago
No mention of Amazon Fresh at the end when talking about groceries creating dedicated fulfillment centers? Amazon already does that and it works very well in my opinion. Out of all the delivery services I’ve used they have the best prices, most consistency (no mistakes or substitutions for me so far), and best delivery. The biggest issue for most people would probably be that the selection isn’t on par with a regular supermarket. It’s still a wide selection, but by the very high American standards of having 600 different kinds of cereal it isn’t up to snuff. Since I mostly buy unprocessed food it’s not an issue for me but it could be for others. Sometimes I go on the Amazon FC subreddit just to get a window into what working in Amazon is really like. A lot of people seem to actually prefer picking for Fresh as long as they don’t have to pick in the freezer. I don’t see a lot of complaints about throughput. It just feels like a much more sensible model than to pay third parties to run through crowded stores picking things - plus as someone who really hates substitutions, knowing they have Amazon’s warehouse software keeping track of their stock is nice.
- chapium 5y ago
  Amazon Fresh or PrimeNow! or whatever they are calling it might as well be called Amazon Wilted. I trust Walmart to be more fresh than them.
  - opportune 5y ago
    I haven’t encountered this yet but it could be a regional/luck thing. I do imagine Amazon has worse (for the customer) incentives to dole out nearly expired or unsightly produce than third party supermarket pickers.
- philwelch 5y ago
  Part of the problem is that supermarkets are designed to pessimize picking efficiency while fulfillment centers are designed to optimize it. Maybe “pessimize” is too strong a word, but a supermarket wants to route you all the way around the damn store just to buy produce, meat, milk, and bread just so you have to see all their promotional end cap displays and maybe wander down an aisle or two. And since it takes so much time to go grocery shopping, you don’t have time to actually cook that same night so why not pick up a hot chicken dinner while you’re there? On your way out you have to stand in line surrounded by tabloids, women’s magazines, candy bars, gum, maybe some cold drinks. It’s a good hustle and I don’t really begrudge them at all, but it’s diametrically opposed to the goals of efficiently fulfilling e-commerce orders.
ackbar03 5y ago
I'm still not convinced this whole business of grocery delivery/fast food delivery is even a viable economic model. The value add is so tiny relative to the costs involved. An actual human being, A, must be paid to drive down to a store and deliver something for B who is too lazy to get off his couch for a burrito. The only way that would work is if A is being paid the bare minimum or if B has plenty of cash to spare. Even then, whatever value the middleman captures is supposed to fund this billion dollar startup with armies of engineers and office space and the works. I dunno, seems a bit wonky to me but maybe I'm just old fashioned.
- viraptor 5y ago
  > deliver something for B who is too lazy to get off his couch for a burrito That's a pretty judgmental view for the service. Try these for B: - a mother with limited transport options - a disabled person - a covid isolating person, or generally a person not feeling well and not wanting to infect others - someone with surprise visitors coming next day, trying to fit in shopping, organising the house, other tasks - or simply people like me who make a choice between spending an hour a week doing grocery shopping, or spending that time with family. (Although I get an option for pickup rather than delivery so I'm going with that)
- okso 5y ago
  Exactly. The model of delivery would only start to really make sense with A being an autonomous robot. Or if inequalities keep increasing between the rich B and the poor A.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  It is misleading to bundle grocery delivery with fast food delivery. Grocery delivery is done with trucks fully loaded with orders and an optimized route for fuel efficiency. It is actually much more energy efficient to package 40 ppl grocery orders in _one_ 4.3 tonne 10' truck, and make an efficient delivery route, than to have 40 people drive to their grocery store in an empty 3 tonne vehicle. I am not sure what the situation in the US is but realistically in Europe if you have a big enough family online grocery shopping is a no-brainer. I only shop physically for very specific perishables like bread, fruit, cheeses. Have been doing it every since our family grew and our time, mental bandwith, and lower backs decayed.
alkonaut 5y ago
Why is this still a gig-economy job with pickups in regular stores (anywhere)? It's not like when I order books from amazon that some guy runs an errand to a book store. When I order food online it gets picked like an amazon order in a large warehouse fulfilment center. An online-only groceries store doesn't need parking, signs, price tags, nicely stocked shelves and a lot of other things that drive up cost. They just need a huge selection and they can sit in an industrial area. Obviously no one will just magically create these warehouses but his is a business that has existed at scale for a decade or more, the pandemic didn't exactly come as a surprise.
- greenpresident 5y ago
  Sitting in an industrial area makes for large distances from where people actually live. For fast delivery times, storage needs to be decentralised. Newer delivery services promise "under 10 minutes" as your delivery time, see Gorillas [0] for example. They do so by storing items all over the city and delivering by bike. https://gorillas.io/en-us https://gorillas.io/en-us
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    That seems more like a service for ”running errands” for which it makes perfect sense. I usually have at least 24h advance on the services I use (not even in the same city) and the delivery isn’t free until you reach around $70 so I usually do a week’s shopping which is around $200. The prices are also ~20% over store prices. But this business model is wildly successful it seems. Unsure if it would work in the US where customers are more used to cheap services though.
rawoke083600 5y ago
What i noticed in my country (South Africa) that recently had a mini-explosion in online-groceries systems. Is how terrible their "search" is. Many of these companies are "traditional" brick-and-mortar stores and although they have lots of I.T skills, it seems there is very little digital-product skills. Like Solr/ElasticSearch/App-Dev etc..
physicsguy 5y ago
Ocado in the UK have really been clever with the way they've done it via automation rather than people. Worth reading about, I do wonder when they'll make a profit though...
draw_down 5y ago
I just go to the store myself. Seems simpler that way and I don’t have to worry about them picking bad produce or making poor substitutions.
bash-j 5y ago
The big two supermarkets in Australia use tablets attached to the trolley so the picker doesn't have to carry the PDT with them. The pickers, delivery drivers are all employees of the supermarkets. In areas where they have enough customers, they have 'stores' that are only for online fulfillment. You have to reserve a time slot, usually closer and more convenient equals more expensive. I once price checked the groceries compared to a receipt from shopping in person, and there was a 5% markup on items that weren't on promotion. You can 'click-and-collect' to save on delivery fees, but you still need to reserve a time slot well ahead, during the lock downs it wasn't unusual to have to book a week out. I worked in a DC for one of the supermarkets and the pick rate is closer to 200 cartons per hour. Cartons contain multiple units and can be pretty heavy depending on the product. It's not for everyone, even with incentive paid on top of a healthy union wage, most people would quit after a few months. The good pickers made it look easy. Some had been working there 10, 20 years.
philliphaydon 5y ago
It’s so easy in Singapore that I’ve become lazy. Even tho I literally live on top of the super market, I still order my groceries… delivery is free, I don’t have to deal with crowds, I can take my time, pick my delivery slot. It’s TOO easy…
- loceng 5y ago
  What's the cost of it being too easy do you think? What are you potentially missing out on?
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    Prob my health. Because I get out less as a result.
easton 5y ago
So, is this just a HN thing (since engineer/STEM salaries are higher than the usual population) or do a lot of people order groceries? I've looked several times, and I couldn't figure out a way to get groceries to my house from either of the local grocery stores (one is about five minutes away, another is ten or so) without paying 30-50% more than just driving to the store myself (and that's assuming you have a big order, if you just need some extra burgers at a party it could be up to double what it is in the store). Instacart has a bunch of fees, I'm pretty sure Publix has a fee on top (although I'm not certain), you have to tip the driver, and you'll get it hours after you order vs just running to the store and getting whatever it is you need and driving home. And the prices are inflated slightly. Even if I was super busy (or getting paid more money than I knew what to do with), that's a lot of money vs just stopping in on the way home from work or running once on the weekend.
- vsskanth 5y ago
  I just do pickup. It's free usually or above a certain threshold. They deliver it to your trunk.
  - subpixel 5y ago
    Grocery pickup is revolutionary when you have kids. 1. Order online, with lots of features that make re-ordering a breeze 2. Use coupons, b/c it's point-and-click, not clip-and-collect 3. Plan around grocery pickup, as opposed to rushing to the grocery store whenever you have time 4. Sit in the car for 10m and read your kids a book or listen to Mr Rogers songs until a nice person fills your trunk with your groceries
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Be careful with that. Wegmans (using Instacart) has different per-item prices for pickup/delivery than if you picked yourself in-store. Sometimes it's substantial. https://www.reddit.com/r/instacart/comments/i1uw2o/massive_massive_markup_how_can_this_be_legal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/instacart/comments/i1uw2o/massive_m... > The AVERAGE markup of items in my order is 35% > The highest markup of an item was 733%. To put this in perspective, if that item had been $10, I would have been charged $83.30 for it. > Another item was marked up 220%. This item cost $4.68, I was charged $14.99 for it, and if I look in the Wegmans website that item is listed for $8.04. How can they arbitrarily charge more than the actual listing on the website? How can they charge almost 3 times more than the actual cost? https://www.wegmans.com/service/faq/online-grocery-ordering/ https://www.wegmans.com/service/faq/online-grocery-ordering/ > When you shop online with us, you’ll find our prices are about 15% above in store, which includes the cost of shopping your order.
mbg721 5y ago
Maybe I'm weird about how I shop, but online grocery ordering never made sense to me. If I'm picking out meat and produce for the week, I want to see the dates/ripeness and good deals before I decide what to get, and then plan meals around that. I tried delivery (Kroger) a couple times last year, and it was pretty rough--multiple packages of meat that expired that day, bizarre substitutions (canned green beans instead of frozen spinach), and a bag of completely unrelated stuff that we think belonged to someone else's order. And on top of all that, it cost more; I don't get it.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I used Peapod a ways back and dropped it as soon as I got off crutches for pretty much the reasons you give. I suspect that home delivery for a lot of people is a combination of 1.) food is fuel so they don't really care about the details; 2.) Grocery shopping is a pain because of mobility issues, young children, etc. and 3.) They resent spending the time shopping because #1.

113 points by helloworld 5y ago

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/QPFJB https://archive.is/QPFJB

bsder 5y ago

Obligatory repost of "Manna": https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

maxerickson 5y ago
I'm a creature of habit in a small town, so I hadn't used pickup any before I saw someone jogging through a local big box store with a cart full of totes and knew I didn't want to use it. It seems, uh, unlikely that the stores would try to build a system where the worker gets paid for the time that the customers save.
- beauzero 5y ago
  We have started shopping at Walmart again for groceries. I just won't take the time to walk in and fight through the crowds. If I can pick it up heck yes.
  - koolba 5y ago
    My personal favorite is order pickup from Home Depot. I think I’ve saved hours of time. Both from not searching through aisles to find what I want (which never seems to be where it’s supposed to be...) and because when something is not actually in stock, you don’t waste a trip to find out.
    - bryantraywick 5y ago
      I just ordered 3 items for in store pickup today from Home Depot and one of them was wrong. That is going to cost me another 40+ minute round trip that I wouldn't have had to make if I would have just gone inside and picked the items myself. There is 0 chance I will be ordering groceries online in the next 10 years.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        > and one of them was wrong Then you get to play the "how and why was it wrong" game. Was the image online wrong? Did the pick the wrong item? Did the UPC code mis-scan? In my case, it seems like the manufacturer was sloppy and put two different incompatible versions in the same bag. The one I got wasn't even sold by that company. Possibly in a production line change switchover.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Doesn't Home Depot show the stock levels for each shop on their website? Just yesterday I wanted something from a Danish equivalent (Silvan). The website said the nearest store to me had 8 in stock, so there's little chance they'll be gone by the time I get there. Many larger (and some smaller) shops have this. https://www.silvan.dk/kram-spaendeskiver-rustfri-a2-m6-12-100-stk?id=2702-9697477 https://www.silvan.dk/kram-spaendeskiver-rustfri-a2-m6-12-10... (click "Click and Collect" and it shows the stock levels. You can deny location access.)
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Home Depot’s site will tell you the location in your store down to Aisle and Bay. It’s very rarely wrong in my experience. I have experienced out of stock (when claimed to be in stock, presumably due to shrinkage in the store).
CiceroCiceronis 5y ago
Reminds me of this excellent article: https://rein.pk/replacing-middle-management-with-apis https://rein.pk/replacing-middle-management-with-apis

Animats 5y ago

Webvan, 20 years ago, had the right idea - don't pick from retail stores, use a proper fulfillment center. But they had 3% market share in 30 cities, instead of 30% market share in 3 cities, because their VCs thought the "first mover advantage" was crucial. So they had too much infrastructure for their volume. At Amazon scale, though, that approach works.

choxi 5y ago
A lot of the famous dot com busts were basically just ahead of their time: https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1003/gallery.dot_com_busts/ https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1003/gallery... To me these all sound like predecessors to Facebook, Amazon, and Uber
- code_duck 5y ago
  They may have had similar ideas to those very successful companies, but besides the timing, lacked the talent at execution.
  - sharkweek 5y ago
    I remember in high school learning how to build little websites and thinking, “it sure would be cool if we could build a little online yearbook for our school! Everyone could have their own little profile page!”
    - le-mark 5y ago
      Did you also think “l can then use their personal information to target ads and make $billions!” I wager you did not, because you’re probably not as depraved as some.
      - code_duck 5y ago
        I'd tend to think "I could sell ads!", which can lead to that.

Shadonototro 5y ago

the people who actually make things happen should be paid as much as javascript developers their salary is a shame

seattle_spring 5y ago
Just so I understand your position: you are saying delivery drivers should be paid the same as software engineers?
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  He said JavaScript developers not software engineers
  - lghh 5y ago
    I don't understand the distinction you're making. Can you explain?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - MispelledToyota 5y ago
      Software Engineers use assembly.
      - seattle_spring 5y ago
        Assembly? Ha! A real engineer would write code directly in binary.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Would octal be good enough? (Guess my mother qualifies as a real engineer, but I don't.)
        5y ago

canada_dry 5y ago

Why I won't order dairy/produce/meats/frozen food online: while I'm shopping I'll often see a stack of order boxes with perishable and frozen items slowly saunter through the non-perishable isles - either the picker is ignoring the process, or there isn't one! Plus, I always check to ensure I pickup the longest expiration date possible... pickers I would imagine would do the opposite (i.e. get rid of the store's oldest stock first).

JoshTriplett 5y ago
> pickers I would imagine would do the opposite (i.e. get rid of the store's oldest stock first). Maybe if they worked for the store, but why would they do that if they worked for an independent service with ratings and customer support? Personally, my experience even with first-party shoppers is that they seem to select for good quality. I've never gotten unpleasant produce or near-expired items. I'm sure it happens, but I'm also sure it produces plenty of support calls.
- _delirium 5y ago
  I've gotten spoiled or damaged stuff when doing curbside pickup at Target. But it is also pretty easy to get a refund if you click a few buttons in the app and attach a photo. My guess is that in this case, the pickers are optimizing for throughput and not going out of their way to pick better or worse items.
  - zevra 5y ago
    can confirm. I work in a store doing picks. We are all students and generally do not care. If customers aren't looking food + product is being thrown into a cart haphazard. There are a few of us who care a bit but not many. Luckily work for a store that is too inept to track our performance. I can only imagine that this gets worse when employees are monitored.
nfm 5y ago
I used to pack shelves for a supermarket and I believe at the time (~15 years ago) we had a two hour window in which perishables could be out of the fridge. Usually we'd wheel out pallets from the stockroom fridge or freezer onto the floor, move all the boxes off the pallet into their rough locations on the floor, and then pack each box into the fridges sequentially (effectively batching up the sorting/locating/carrying work). If stock sat on the floor without getting into the fridge for more than two hours, or in the rare occasion there was a power outage and the fridges or freezers were out for more than two hours, stock had to be written off. All that to say the allowed timeline might be longer than you expect (or desire)!

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

This is frequent result of when two completely independent decision chains meet but are drastically different in every other way. The method by which grocery stores layout items can have a lot of per location variation or in other works per location knowledge. Sure most store changes have it figured out for normal items but like the arrival notes, seasonal and temporary items often have incorrect information. Even worse is when the normal stock location e.g cold beer in the beer isle is limited in capacity so overstock(?) is put in other locations that differ day to day, location to location. Good luck knowing that the overstock location for beer is the soda isle but also sometimes the seasonal area during any holiday or sporting event. The other side of the decision process, are the companies doing these apps which optimize for every variable, make every picker 100% replaceable. It would be interesting if they could incentivize pickers to learn a handful of stores inside and out.

mariojv 5y ago

If using Instacart, consider switching to your local grocer's delivery service instead. It's kind of wild how many people in Texas used Instacart and never knew that H-E-B had their own delivery option. There's generally far less markup for similar service, although the real-time conversation Instacart allows with your shopper is nice. Not nice enough to justify the mark ups for routine shopping, though, IMO.

bradknowles 5y ago
HEB does curbside service, but what is their delivery service? I’ve looked, and I haven’t found anything. I’d love to use them instead of InstaCart, but so far as I can tell, there is no such option available to me. This, in Austin, TX, or all places. The HEB “Tech Hub” is here, so we should be the first place to roll out a service like that.
- Sebguer 5y ago
  https://www.heb.com/static-pages/faq?category=curbside-and-home-delivery&question=where-is-your-delivery-service-available https://www.heb.com/static-pages/faq?category=curbside-and-h... It's limited zip codes, at present.
- mariojv 5y ago
  On their main page, where it says, "Curbside at your location" in the top right, click that and select delivery. Like another poster mentioned, it may not be in your city. More than likely if you're in Austin, it just isn't in your area. H-E-B's headquarters is actually in San Antonio, where I live, so they may have more options available here. They don't advertise it a ton, but they actually hire a bunch of developers here in SA as well. I don't have the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a 50/50 split between the two cities. My husband works as a developer there at their HQ in San Antonio.
- brandonscott 5y ago
  HEB is using Favor for deliveries (which they bought a few years ago)

vmception 5y ago

I still want a way to access grocery lists and prepopulate my cart with those items or the nearest equivalent Just like with grocery delivery apps, people were dismissive of the reality where such low effort would be involved and yet in some areas there are only food delivery shoppers anywhere to be seen. this will also be a hit Recipe blogs can allow the users to auto populate their carts on Amazon or other common grocery delivery apps that interface with their local area The nutrition bloggers can just share their entire shopping list for one-click replication People that dont find the discovery aspect of shopping entertaining at all can still have all of the upside without resorting to those prepackaged-meal-but-pretend-to-be-a-chef startups

code_duck 5y ago
The “items you’ve bought before” or “add all items on receipt to cart” features help me along these lines.
- vmception 5y ago
  I want other’s.
wiglaf1979 5y ago
Full disclosure, I work for Walmart in IT and specifically several components for the Online Grocery product. Ask and ye shall receive. Buzzfeed's Tasty and Walmart have an integration that sounds like what you are looking for. Build a grocery list manually as well as from recipes in the Tasty app. Then when you "checkout" in the Tasty app it'll pre populate your grocery list in the Walmart app. You also select which Walmart you are shopping at so it shifts some of the items around to match like substitutes for what the recipe calls for. https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/08/19/walmart-and-buzzfeeds-tasty-stir-together-meal-planning-list-making-and-grocery-shopping-in-one-easy-solution-shoppable-recipes https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/08/19/walmart-an...
- vmception 5y ago
  Great thank you! I’ll check the progress of that in my area

gnubet 5y ago

Only Daisy cottage cheese will do!

stevebmark 5y ago

I would love to see Instacart shoppers banned from grocery store main areas and instead use a coordinated pickup system out of sight, where they wait longer, have worse picks, and the grocery can do more organized stock providing. Instacart shoppers are a nuisance, they leave carts full of items in the middle of isles while they stare at their phones to try to figure out the item they need to find next. They block fish/meat/deli ordering as they try to figure out what the customer asked for. As someone whose main option for food is regular grocery runs, I want stores to be optimized for people like me, not food delivery.

tsjq 5y ago

In India, Amazon owns a retail store chain. And does the ordering really well. I'm happy with it. Other standalone supermarkets recieve orders through whatsapp, and deliver to doorstep. This is convenient when you know what you need. If needed they call you back to clarify .

midasuni 5y ago

I’ve been buying groceries twice a week online from various U.K. supermarkets for well over a decade. Not everything always works - I remember a time in 2006 when they didn’t turn up in the prescribed slot, we left the house then they phoned irate when they arrived 90 minutes after the end of the delivery slot. Obviously there can be substitutions too, sometimes they’re fine, sometimes they aren’t But on the whole of just works. Even at the start of the pandemic when demand was high, regular customers like me were prioritised. The impression I get is this isn’t the case in the US?

swarnie_ 5y ago
I tried doing online deliveries while at university back in 07-09 and found the whole ordeal so rubbish that i've never gone back to it even during the pandemic. Glad to hear they smoothed it out a little. I wonder if the US is better or worse for using middleman start-up services where as picking nad delivery here is traditionally done in house.
zyemuzu 5y ago
I once ordered black pudding and received a two pack of chocolate sponge puddings. I think it was Tesco. That was genuinely funny though, and in all my experience has been good. Also, call me a frugal jerk, but I spent about 2 years adding dots to my Gmail address to get £15 off as a new customer offer every time. It got a bit awkward when the same delivery driver had to give me the 'new customer' spiel and said he was sure he'd been here before.
nencrystation 5y ago
Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years. Like the healthcare debate with less politics. "kroger should buy some vans, hire more people, and start a website" is pretty much the end of it. (I assume krogers is a supermarket)
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  >Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years As a non-American who is disproportionately aware of US culture and issues even though I've only been there a couple of times, I think it's part of a general pattern. My pet theory is that the combination of the USA's size, relative geographical isolation, historically strong economy, and youngish history have led to a critical mass of its population being completely unaware that there are certain things that can be done differently and arguably better, as they are done elsewhere. Most of the developed World is composed of either small neighbouring countries between which ideas are more easily shared, countries with long histories and limited resources that have had the need to improve their efficiencies and learned from their pasts, or countries who had to make concerted efforts to either become develop or recover after catastrophic war. Meanwhile, the population of the USA (and to a lesser extent Canada, and maybe Australia and NZ) has had little exposure to alternative ways of doing things, and no motivation to do so—everything is fine. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following things that are done better outside the US but most Americans are unaware that alternatives are even possible: e-payment methods and cheap bank transfers, home insulation, vote counting, prices including sales tax, intersections (roundabouts vs 4-way STOPs), electrical plugs, kick-resistant front doors, punch-resistant interior walls, toilets that don't need a plunger handy, SSNs not being a de-facto immutable password, etc. I've sometimes been tempted to compile a detailed list of articles on each of these things on a blog, but not being American I feel it would be very unfair and would seem gratuitously condescending on my part. I hope this doesn't come across as dismissive or an attempt at a flame-war, it's just my observation. I have nothing against the USA, and I am absolutely not implying that no good ideas come from the USA! Many great ideas were born in the USA, and are then adopted or adapted by other countries. The difference is that the flow doesn't seem to go the other way.

opportune 5y ago

No mention of Amazon Fresh at the end when talking about groceries creating dedicated fulfillment centers? Amazon already does that and it works very well in my opinion. Out of all the delivery services I’ve used they have the best prices, most consistency (no mistakes or substitutions for me so far), and best delivery. The biggest issue for most people would probably be that the selection isn’t on par with a regular supermarket. It’s still a wide selection, but by the very high American standards of having 600 different kinds of cereal it isn’t up to snuff. Since I mostly buy unprocessed food it’s not an issue for me but it could be for others. Sometimes I go on the Amazon FC subreddit just to get a window into what working in Amazon is really like. A lot of people seem to actually prefer picking for Fresh as long as they don’t have to pick in the freezer. I don’t see a lot of complaints about throughput. It just feels like a much more sensible model than to pay third parties to run through crowded stores picking things - plus as someone who really hates substitutions, knowing they have Amazon’s warehouse software keeping track of their stock is nice.

chapium 5y ago
Amazon Fresh or PrimeNow! or whatever they are calling it might as well be called Amazon Wilted. I trust Walmart to be more fresh than them.
- opportune 5y ago
  I haven’t encountered this yet but it could be a regional/luck thing. I do imagine Amazon has worse (for the customer) incentives to dole out nearly expired or unsightly produce than third party supermarket pickers.
philwelch 5y ago
Part of the problem is that supermarkets are designed to pessimize picking efficiency while fulfillment centers are designed to optimize it. Maybe “pessimize” is too strong a word, but a supermarket wants to route you all the way around the damn store just to buy produce, meat, milk, and bread just so you have to see all their promotional end cap displays and maybe wander down an aisle or two. And since it takes so much time to go grocery shopping, you don’t have time to actually cook that same night so why not pick up a hot chicken dinner while you’re there? On your way out you have to stand in line surrounded by tabloids, women’s magazines, candy bars, gum, maybe some cold drinks. It’s a good hustle and I don’t really begrudge them at all, but it’s diametrically opposed to the goals of efficiently fulfilling e-commerce orders.

ackbar03 5y ago

I'm still not convinced this whole business of grocery delivery/fast food delivery is even a viable economic model. The value add is so tiny relative to the costs involved. An actual human being, A, must be paid to drive down to a store and deliver something for B who is too lazy to get off his couch for a burrito. The only way that would work is if A is being paid the bare minimum or if B has plenty of cash to spare. Even then, whatever value the middleman captures is supposed to fund this billion dollar startup with armies of engineers and office space and the works. I dunno, seems a bit wonky to me but maybe I'm just old fashioned.

viraptor 5y ago
> deliver something for B who is too lazy to get off his couch for a burrito That's a pretty judgmental view for the service. Try these for B: - a mother with limited transport options - a disabled person - a covid isolating person, or generally a person not feeling well and not wanting to infect others - someone with surprise visitors coming next day, trying to fit in shopping, organising the house, other tasks - or simply people like me who make a choice between spending an hour a week doing grocery shopping, or spending that time with family. (Although I get an option for pickup rather than delivery so I'm going with that)
okso 5y ago
Exactly. The model of delivery would only start to really make sense with A being an autonomous robot. Or if inequalities keep increasing between the rich B and the poor A.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
It is misleading to bundle grocery delivery with fast food delivery. Grocery delivery is done with trucks fully loaded with orders and an optimized route for fuel efficiency. It is actually much more energy efficient to package 40 ppl grocery orders in _one_ 4.3 tonne 10' truck, and make an efficient delivery route, than to have 40 people drive to their grocery store in an empty 3 tonne vehicle. I am not sure what the situation in the US is but realistically in Europe if you have a big enough family online grocery shopping is a no-brainer. I only shop physically for very specific perishables like bread, fruit, cheeses. Have been doing it every since our family grew and our time, mental bandwith, and lower backs decayed.

alkonaut 5y ago

Why is this still a gig-economy job with pickups in regular stores (anywhere)? It's not like when I order books from amazon that some guy runs an errand to a book store. When I order food online it gets picked like an amazon order in a large warehouse fulfilment center. An online-only groceries store doesn't need parking, signs, price tags, nicely stocked shelves and a lot of other things that drive up cost. They just need a huge selection and they can sit in an industrial area. Obviously no one will just magically create these warehouses but his is a business that has existed at scale for a decade or more, the pandemic didn't exactly come as a surprise.

greenpresident 5y ago
Sitting in an industrial area makes for large distances from where people actually live. For fast delivery times, storage needs to be decentralised. Newer delivery services promise "under 10 minutes" as your delivery time, see Gorillas [0] for example. They do so by storing items all over the city and delivering by bike. https://gorillas.io/en-us https://gorillas.io/en-us
- alkonaut 5y ago
  That seems more like a service for ”running errands” for which it makes perfect sense. I usually have at least 24h advance on the services I use (not even in the same city) and the delivery isn’t free until you reach around $70 so I usually do a week’s shopping which is around $200. The prices are also ~20% over store prices. But this business model is wildly successful it seems. Unsure if it would work in the US where customers are more used to cheap services though.

rawoke083600 5y ago

What i noticed in my country (South Africa) that recently had a mini-explosion in online-groceries systems. Is how terrible their "search" is. Many of these companies are "traditional" brick-and-mortar stores and although they have lots of I.T skills, it seems there is very little digital-product skills. Like Solr/ElasticSearch/App-Dev etc..

physicsguy 5y ago

Ocado in the UK have really been clever with the way they've done it via automation rather than people. Worth reading about, I do wonder when they'll make a profit though...

draw_down 5y ago

I just go to the store myself. Seems simpler that way and I don’t have to worry about them picking bad produce or making poor substitutions.

bash-j 5y ago

The big two supermarkets in Australia use tablets attached to the trolley so the picker doesn't have to carry the PDT with them. The pickers, delivery drivers are all employees of the supermarkets. In areas where they have enough customers, they have 'stores' that are only for online fulfillment. You have to reserve a time slot, usually closer and more convenient equals more expensive. I once price checked the groceries compared to a receipt from shopping in person, and there was a 5% markup on items that weren't on promotion. You can 'click-and-collect' to save on delivery fees, but you still need to reserve a time slot well ahead, during the lock downs it wasn't unusual to have to book a week out. I worked in a DC for one of the supermarkets and the pick rate is closer to 200 cartons per hour. Cartons contain multiple units and can be pretty heavy depending on the product. It's not for everyone, even with incentive paid on top of a healthy union wage, most people would quit after a few months. The good pickers made it look easy. Some had been working there 10, 20 years.

philliphaydon 5y ago

It’s so easy in Singapore that I’ve become lazy. Even tho I literally live on top of the super market, I still order my groceries… delivery is free, I don’t have to deal with crowds, I can take my time, pick my delivery slot. It’s TOO easy…

loceng 5y ago
What's the cost of it being too easy do you think? What are you potentially missing out on?
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  Prob my health. Because I get out less as a result.

easton 5y ago

So, is this just a HN thing (since engineer/STEM salaries are higher than the usual population) or do a lot of people order groceries? I've looked several times, and I couldn't figure out a way to get groceries to my house from either of the local grocery stores (one is about five minutes away, another is ten or so) without paying 30-50% more than just driving to the store myself (and that's assuming you have a big order, if you just need some extra burgers at a party it could be up to double what it is in the store). Instacart has a bunch of fees, I'm pretty sure Publix has a fee on top (although I'm not certain), you have to tip the driver, and you'll get it hours after you order vs just running to the store and getting whatever it is you need and driving home. And the prices are inflated slightly. Even if I was super busy (or getting paid more money than I knew what to do with), that's a lot of money vs just stopping in on the way home from work or running once on the weekend.

vsskanth 5y ago
I just do pickup. It's free usually or above a certain threshold. They deliver it to your trunk.
- subpixel 5y ago
  Grocery pickup is revolutionary when you have kids. 1. Order online, with lots of features that make re-ordering a breeze 2. Use coupons, b/c it's point-and-click, not clip-and-collect 3. Plan around grocery pickup, as opposed to rushing to the grocery store whenever you have time 4. Sit in the car for 10m and read your kids a book or listen to Mr Rogers songs until a nice person fills your trunk with your groceries
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Be careful with that. Wegmans (using Instacart) has different per-item prices for pickup/delivery than if you picked yourself in-store. Sometimes it's substantial. https://www.reddit.com/r/instacart/comments/i1uw2o/massive_massive_markup_how_can_this_be_legal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/instacart/comments/i1uw2o/massive_m... > The AVERAGE markup of items in my order is 35% > The highest markup of an item was 733%. To put this in perspective, if that item had been $10, I would have been charged $83.30 for it. > Another item was marked up 220%. This item cost $4.68, I was charged $14.99 for it, and if I look in the Wegmans website that item is listed for $8.04. How can they arbitrarily charge more than the actual listing on the website? How can they charge almost 3 times more than the actual cost? https://www.wegmans.com/service/faq/online-grocery-ordering/ https://www.wegmans.com/service/faq/online-grocery-ordering/ > When you shop online with us, you’ll find our prices are about 15% above in store, which includes the cost of shopping your order.

mbg721 5y ago

Maybe I'm weird about how I shop, but online grocery ordering never made sense to me. If I'm picking out meat and produce for the week, I want to see the dates/ripeness and good deals before I decide what to get, and then plan meals around that. I tried delivery (Kroger) a couple times last year, and it was pretty rough--multiple packages of meat that expired that day, bizarre substitutions (canned green beans instead of frozen spinach), and a bag of completely unrelated stuff that we think belonged to someone else's order. And on top of all that, it cost more; I don't get it.

ghaff 5y ago
I used Peapod a ways back and dropped it as soon as I got off crutches for pretty much the reasons you give. I suspect that home delivery for a lot of people is a combination of 1.) food is fuel so they don't really care about the details; 2.) Grocery shopping is a pain because of mobility issues, young children, etc. and 3.) They resent spending the time shopping because #1.