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Is there any evidence that dark stores are more disruptive than...normal stores? A regular supermarket gets tons of traffic, trucks unloading goods, etc. What's

Is there any evidence that dark stores are more disruptive than...normal stores? A regular supermarket gets tons of traffic, trucks unloading goods, etc. What's the difference?

astura 5y ago
I suppose you could operate a dark store in a residential neighborhood where it would be impractical to impossible to operate a regular store. Or maybe it's a fluke in zoning laws where they can legally operate a dark store but not a regular store.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  Brings to mind the FreshDirect trucks squatting in the streets of NYC, acting as a mini-warehouse for the bike couriers; its literally free real estate: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbike/comments/n6oi0v/a_freshdirect_truck_has_been_squatting_on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbike/comments/n6oi0v/a_freshdire...
bogomipz 5y ago
Anecdotal and personal observations: Regular grocery stores have dedicated service entrances for deliveries. These dark grocery stores are often just using whatever repurposed single door retail space they could get, i.e places that were built for regular foot traffic retail. Also the amount of ebikes and delivery scooters coming and going on the sidewalks in front of these places, as well as blocking them, has become something a nuisance for pedestrians. While not necessarily "disruptive" but certainly somewhat dystopian feeling - these dark grocery stores just put up paper over the windows. Not transitionally but permanently. It's really not any kind of an improvement over the blight of an empty storefront.
- himlion 5y ago
  These shops in Amsterdam are even using converted residential apartments.
fock 5y ago
the normal supermarket (or any non-gig-business) here in Germany has to provide: - parking (bikes/cars/none if only pedestrians are there) - some rest/change area for employees These things cost quite a bit of money. Now, as with most gig-economy "startups" (or should you call them moneybaths?), the "dark stores" require these things too, but at least with the locations I saw, they don't really do that. Essentially their fronts look like a branded homeless-camp. No thanks. Also: can someone explain to me, how this concept will (like that of any other gig-economy company) be realized in any semi-equal society (aka no slavers state). Essentially you'd probably need 2/100 people working for that, nonstop. These people will basically do something which nowadays everyone but the richest people have heavily optimized already, just that it's not supposed to be optimized, because I don't think the idea is a soviet-style "hey, I bring you your allocated food, once a week". The explicit promise is that whoever can afford this, can just call these services on a whim, meaning this is super-inefficient from a societal view (how do you optimize 10min delivery time?). Then, just letting the price decide and having all of services structured that way, you'll essentially get the slavers state, neolib. edition™. Because a lot of people working in these sectors will then be forced to choose the soviet-style solution outlined above (and you already see this!), just without being allowed a say in that matter, because that's how the system is supposed to be, no? What a brave new world!
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > how this concept will (like that of any other gig-economy company) be realized in any semi-equal society (aka no slavers state). Essentially you'd probably need 2/100 people working for that, nonstop It can work, just not in a way that Silicon Valley VC bros want it to. Most countries already have a legacy version of this system in place: the post office, as well as a few private courier companies. Those systems' "tick rates" are typically one day - packages are collected at depots/sorting offices early in the morning, assigned to couriers who then spend the rest of the day delivering them. Increasing the tick rate of such a system is possible especially with smaller goods as well as being able to take advantage of more "depots" (for grocery deliveries, supermarkets are essentially the depots) - the costs will obviously be higher, but not prohibitively so. The problem with the current delivery services is that it's fragmented - every company has their own couriers, restaurants/supermarkets, etc where not only is the supply & demand unbalanced, leading to situations where one company's couriers may be sitting idle wasting time loitering (leading to potential antisocial behavior) where anothers' might be overloaded and delivering a poor customer experience with regards to wait times. The system also has the overheads of people staying idle which is currently subsidized by treating these workers like shit and denying them employment rights/benefits. A single marketplace providing an API for moving goods from point A to point B priced by weight, special requirements (refrigerated transport, etc), timeliness and the current state of the market (dynamic pricing) could work. This will allow the system to maximize the efficiency of the people on the ground, being able to consolidate deliveries and reduce waste (bikes or vehicles sitting idle, couriers loitering around, etc). This could be operated by the existing postal system and even use this same infrastructure for mail/package delivery. The above system would undeniably cost more than the current VC-subsidized services which also underpay their workers and treat them like shit in general, but not by an exorbitant amount. Its costs overheads would scale linearly though which is a bad fit for VCs looking to monopolize the world, however as a public service similar to the post office it should be viable.

Is there any evidence that dark stores are more disruptive than...normal stores? A regular supermarket gets tons of traffic, trucks unloading goods, etc. What's the difference?

astura 5y ago

I suppose you could operate a dark store in a residential neighborhood where it would be impractical to impossible to operate a regular store. Or maybe it's a fluke in zoning laws where they can legally operate a dark store but not a regular store.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
Brings to mind the FreshDirect trucks squatting in the streets of NYC, acting as a mini-warehouse for the bike couriers; its literally free real estate: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbike/comments/n6oi0v/a_freshdirect_truck_has_been_squatting_on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbike/comments/n6oi0v/a_freshdire...

bogomipz 5y ago

Anecdotal and personal observations: Regular grocery stores have dedicated service entrances for deliveries. These dark grocery stores are often just using whatever repurposed single door retail space they could get, i.e places that were built for regular foot traffic retail. Also the amount of ebikes and delivery scooters coming and going on the sidewalks in front of these places, as well as blocking them, has become something a nuisance for pedestrians. While not necessarily "disruptive" but certainly somewhat dystopian feeling - these dark grocery stores just put up paper over the windows. Not transitionally but permanently. It's really not any kind of an improvement over the blight of an empty storefront.

himlion 5y ago
These shops in Amsterdam are even using converted residential apartments.

fock 5y ago

the normal supermarket (or any non-gig-business) here in Germany has to provide: - parking (bikes/cars/none if only pedestrians are there) - some rest/change area for employees These things cost quite a bit of money. Now, as with most gig-economy "startups" (or should you call them moneybaths?), the "dark stores" require these things too, but at least with the locations I saw, they don't really do that. Essentially their fronts look like a branded homeless-camp. No thanks. Also: can someone explain to me, how this concept will (like that of any other gig-economy company) be realized in any semi-equal society (aka no slavers state). Essentially you'd probably need 2/100 people working for that, nonstop. These people will basically do something which nowadays everyone but the richest people have heavily optimized already, just that it's not supposed to be optimized, because I don't think the idea is a soviet-style "hey, I bring you your allocated food, once a week". The explicit promise is that whoever can afford this, can just call these services on a whim, meaning this is super-inefficient from a societal view (how do you optimize 10min delivery time?). Then, just letting the price decide and having all of services structured that way, you'll essentially get the slavers state, neolib. edition™. Because a lot of people working in these sectors will then be forced to choose the soviet-style solution outlined above (and you already see this!), just without being allowed a say in that matter, because that's how the system is supposed to be, no? What a brave new world!

Nextgrid 5y ago
> how this concept will (like that of any other gig-economy company) be realized in any semi-equal society (aka no slavers state). Essentially you'd probably need 2/100 people working for that, nonstop It can work, just not in a way that Silicon Valley VC bros want it to. Most countries already have a legacy version of this system in place: the post office, as well as a few private courier companies. Those systems' "tick rates" are typically one day - packages are collected at depots/sorting offices early in the morning, assigned to couriers who then spend the rest of the day delivering them. Increasing the tick rate of such a system is possible especially with smaller goods as well as being able to take advantage of more "depots" (for grocery deliveries, supermarkets are essentially the depots) - the costs will obviously be higher, but not prohibitively so. The problem with the current delivery services is that it's fragmented - every company has their own couriers, restaurants/supermarkets, etc where not only is the supply & demand unbalanced, leading to situations where one company's couriers may be sitting idle wasting time loitering (leading to potential antisocial behavior) where anothers' might be overloaded and delivering a poor customer experience with regards to wait times. The system also has the overheads of people staying idle which is currently subsidized by treating these workers like shit and denying them employment rights/benefits. A single marketplace providing an API for moving goods from point A to point B priced by weight, special requirements (refrigerated transport, etc), timeliness and the current state of the market (dynamic pricing) could work. This will allow the system to maximize the efficiency of the people on the ground, being able to consolidate deliveries and reduce waste (bikes or vehicles sitting idle, couriers loitering around, etc). This could be operated by the existing postal system and even use this same infrastructure for mail/package delivery. The above system would undeniably cost more than the current VC-subsidized services which also underpay their workers and treat them like shit in general, but not by an exorbitant amount. Its costs overheads would scale linearly though which is a bad fit for VCs looking to monopolize the world, however as a public service similar to the post office it should be viable.