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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 bo
by 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 agoSitting 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 agoThat 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.