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I've been curious as to why there aren't any "virtual" grocery stores. With so many people willing to pay for grocery delivery and meal delivery, why not cut ou

I've been curious as to why there aren't any "virtual" grocery stores. With so many people willing to pay for grocery delivery and meal delivery, why not cut out the middleman? It feels like there may be many opportunities to optimize away costs and compete with brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Not only that,but with a proper virtual grocery store, inventory should be much easier to keep up with. I would even expect things like live video stream of the items and being able to pick specific items (useful for perishables like fruits and such). Good idea for a YC startup? :D

epoxia 2y ago
It definitely exists, but I only know of sayweee. Which specializes in asian groceries.
sbuttgereit 2y ago
There have been any number of attempts of this over several several decades. I remember being an early customer of some of the first of these virtual grocery store efforts back in the late 90's. All of the pure play efforts either failed or looked more like virtual convenience/liquor stores than grocery... a small number of consumables with longish shelf-lives and booze on demand. While many of the positives you mention are true, I think it gets more difficult once you get into the logistics around storing and especially moving smaller lots of products, many of which aren't shelf-stable or require special handling such as refrigeration. These things limit the delivery areas and order volumes per vehicle that can reasonably be served by any one warehouse or vehicle which pushes up the costs of executing those deliveries. In a traditional bricks-and-mortar grocery, those transport & logistics costs still exist, but are born directly by the customer who can skip things like refrigeration during transport since they are only servicing themselves... and often don't think of those costs when considering the price of groceries since the purchase of things like gas for the car aren't directly related to the grocery purchase. I think all of this is why many grocery chains deliver out of traditional stores or offer pickup or why things like Instacart and the currier-like services have been more successful.
- notepad0x90 2y ago
  To your point about perishables, services like hellofresh are doing just fine shipping perishables in a sealed cardboard box with an "icepack" (not really ice). With that in mind, I don't understand why the logistics Amazon has achieved with their warehouses and delivery drivers couldn't work for grocery. Unlike hellofresh, if they can re-fit their vans, they can do better and cheaper with less spoiled food. Amazon's idea of a grocery store where you don't have to check out (they use cameras+ML) was a good start but imagine if customers could use the same system to pick items in their warehouse instead, and amazon workers and/or machines select and pack them in a cooled box and deliver it same day just like they do with packages. Existing grocery chains don't want to undercut their brick and mortar business, so they keep trying to make delivery a side hustle. The taxi and restaurant industry did the same thing and failed. Americans are complaining a lot about groceries and grocery chains price gouging. And you also have the environmental benefits as well as societal benefits such as elimination of food deserts.
trilbyglens 2y ago
We have one here in Prague , Czechia which absolutely crushes the brick and mortar shops. I'm always shocked by how shitty grocery delivery is in the us. There's got to be some factor that makes it impractical. Maybe the distances involved? Admittedly the entire Prague Metro Area is like 25km in diameter, and very dense compared to pretty much any area in the us.
maxerickson 2y ago
The competition for that is grocery stores that deliver, where there isn't really an extra middle man to cut out (and where they already have an extensive logistics operation, likely with multiple locations). InstaCart and the like are selling extreme convenience, not groceries.
- notepad0x90 2y ago
  what you're saying is similar to the taxi industry pre-uber, they had similar attempts but they could never do anything to undercut their main existing business. The service experience with grocery stores that delivery (similar to taxis) is poor and the cost is higher. I'm thinking a pure virtual play can at least compete with brick-and-mortar. Cost, and being able to browse visually and pick specific items are the two main obstacles, which today's tech can solve, albeit with a high startup cost.
zexbha 2y ago
In central Florida, Kroger is virtual.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
Food streaming? You might be onto something. Maybe we can make it more energy inefficient though and deliver the groceries by drone.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Good idea -- DoorDash has you covered! They've got a variety of offerings such as "The Essential" and "DashMart", stores they own where Dashers can pick up food and other products. Arguably, these services are all going to converge on virtuality soon, because it matters not to the consumer whether these places have storefronts, open to the public, or even a brand, so the "ghost kitchen" model here is inevitable. Even chains which still implement in-house picking and delivery (Safeway, Kroger and others) will find it efficient to run locations totally closed to public traffic, no checkers or baggers or huge parking lots or deli tables necessary.
xnx 2y ago
Webvan circa 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan

epoxia 2y ago

It definitely exists, but I only know of sayweee. Which specializes in asian groceries.

sbuttgereit 2y ago

There have been any number of attempts of this over several several decades. I remember being an early customer of some of the first of these virtual grocery store efforts back in the late 90's. All of the pure play efforts either failed or looked more like virtual convenience/liquor stores than grocery... a small number of consumables with longish shelf-lives and booze on demand. While many of the positives you mention are true, I think it gets more difficult once you get into the logistics around storing and especially moving smaller lots of products, many of which aren't shelf-stable or require special handling such as refrigeration. These things limit the delivery areas and order volumes per vehicle that can reasonably be served by any one warehouse or vehicle which pushes up the costs of executing those deliveries. In a traditional bricks-and-mortar grocery, those transport & logistics costs still exist, but are born directly by the customer who can skip things like refrigeration during transport since they are only servicing themselves... and often don't think of those costs when considering the price of groceries since the purchase of things like gas for the car aren't directly related to the grocery purchase. I think all of this is why many grocery chains deliver out of traditional stores or offer pickup or why things like Instacart and the currier-like services have been more successful.

notepad0x90 2y ago
To your point about perishables, services like hellofresh are doing just fine shipping perishables in a sealed cardboard box with an "icepack" (not really ice). With that in mind, I don't understand why the logistics Amazon has achieved with their warehouses and delivery drivers couldn't work for grocery. Unlike hellofresh, if they can re-fit their vans, they can do better and cheaper with less spoiled food. Amazon's idea of a grocery store where you don't have to check out (they use cameras+ML) was a good start but imagine if customers could use the same system to pick items in their warehouse instead, and amazon workers and/or machines select and pack them in a cooled box and deliver it same day just like they do with packages. Existing grocery chains don't want to undercut their brick and mortar business, so they keep trying to make delivery a side hustle. The taxi and restaurant industry did the same thing and failed. Americans are complaining a lot about groceries and grocery chains price gouging. And you also have the environmental benefits as well as societal benefits such as elimination of food deserts.

trilbyglens 2y ago

We have one here in Prague , Czechia which absolutely crushes the brick and mortar shops. I'm always shocked by how shitty grocery delivery is in the us. There's got to be some factor that makes it impractical. Maybe the distances involved? Admittedly the entire Prague Metro Area is like 25km in diameter, and very dense compared to pretty much any area in the us.

maxerickson 2y ago

The competition for that is grocery stores that deliver, where there isn't really an extra middle man to cut out (and where they already have an extensive logistics operation, likely with multiple locations). InstaCart and the like are selling extreme convenience, not groceries.

notepad0x90 2y ago
what you're saying is similar to the taxi industry pre-uber, they had similar attempts but they could never do anything to undercut their main existing business. The service experience with grocery stores that delivery (similar to taxis) is poor and the cost is higher. I'm thinking a pure virtual play can at least compete with brick-and-mortar. Cost, and being able to browse visually and pick specific items are the two main obstacles, which today's tech can solve, albeit with a high startup cost.

zexbha 2y ago

In central Florida, Kroger is virtual.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

Food streaming? You might be onto something. Maybe we can make it more energy inefficient though and deliver the groceries by drone.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Good idea -- DoorDash has you covered! They've got a variety of offerings such as "The Essential" and "DashMart", stores they own where Dashers can pick up food and other products. Arguably, these services are all going to converge on virtuality soon, because it matters not to the consumer whether these places have storefronts, open to the public, or even a brand, so the "ghost kitchen" model here is inevitable. Even chains which still implement in-house picking and delivery (Safeway, Kroger and others) will find it efficient to run locations totally closed to public traffic, no checkers or baggers or huge parking lots or deli tables necessary.

xnx 2y ago

Webvan circa 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan