7 ms·

Where are you operating? I live in a dense European city and I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. Smallish shops with bike racks in front o

by simgt 10mo ago

Where are you operating? I live in a dense European city and I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. Smallish shops with bike racks in front of the door are simply too convenient, seems hard to beat. Next few days shopping can easily be done in 15mn on the way back home.

istinetz 10mo ago
judging by his name, he is perhaps in Sofia. I am also living here, and can confirm that many middle class people order groceries online.
dottjt 10mo ago
Maybe it's different in Europe, but at least in Australia you end up paying more at smaller shops, so I tend to avoid them. Is this the case in Europe as well?
- londons_explore 10mo ago
  Yes - groceries in a small shop are easily 2x the £/calorie in the UK compared to a big superstore.
  - simgt 10mo ago
    Are you comparing the cost of strictly identical products or something else? I'd be very curious to have some sources if you have any
    - londons_explore 10mo ago
      No - small shops tend to sell mostly expensive branded products in smaller packets, whereas superstores sell larger packs of unbranded products.
      - jnd-cz 10mo ago
        In my country and city the small shops are largely stocked from buying the same things from larger shops combined with their own resupplying network. So you can either walk 100m to the corner shop, pay couple dozen % extra or walk 500m to the nearest Lidl or similar and save on basically the same products.
  - adamc 10mo ago
    I would think the sensitivity to this would depend a lot on family size. Shopping for just myself... it doesn't matter much. Shopping for a family of 4 would be very different.
- ant6n 10mo ago
  For a first world country, Germany has ridiculously low food prices. These are found at the chain supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, etc.). They tend to be small by American big box standards (perhaps 1000sqm, so maybe 3x the size of a bodega). There's a lot of these supermarkets everywhere in the country, most people can easily come across them during usual daily trips.
- simgt 10mo ago
  Yes shops in dense urban areas are overall more expensive but there are discount stores like Lidl too. For higher quality products the difference is marginal (if you can even find an equivalent in a big suburban store). Having experienced both, my feeling is that it evens out if you account for the running cost of a car used often or delivery.
- mrweasel 10mo ago
  That probably depends on the country and what you mean by small. Smaller shops/supermarkets in Denmark tend to be cheaper, because they are run mostly as discount brands, while the larger stores a premium brands and have the more expensive options. However, Danish supermarkets are generally kept small by regulation, meaning that there are very few supermarket that could be considered big by international standards.
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ekianjo 10mo ago
> Smallish shops with bike racks in front of the door are simply too convenient Most people don't live in city centers. Because they are the most expensive places to live in.
- simgt 10mo ago
  You don't always need to be a city center to have this convenience, but you can't be in an area that is car centric... And usually when people compare the cost of both of these places, they only account for the cost per square meter of accommodation.
- ben_w 10mo ago
  You don't need to be in a city centre for small shops with bike racks. This is village with a population of a bit less than 3000, which I only know about because I have walked East-West across most of the state of Brandenburg (from Słubice in Poland to the city of Brandenburg) and this trains station was a convenient break point: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3459295,14.2800967,3a,60y,142.2h,86.75t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDFKO6NzBeDShx7bNWbPYuw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D3.2456239270868394%26panoid%3DDFKO6NzBeDShx7bNWbPYuw%26yaw%3D142.19715659295255!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3459295,14.2800967,3a,60y,14... Here's Aberystwyth, where I did my degree, population 13k, nearby villages boost that by about 6k, students by another 8k: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4145833,-4.0848806,3a,75y,196.65h,82.93t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sz4BcyFNmmrPIaHRCd15qMQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.068462889161324%26panoid%3Dz4BcyFNmmrPIaHRCd15qMQ%26yaw%3D196.65312216877732!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4145833,-4.0848806,3a,75y,19... I grew up on the south coast of the UK. Which is certainly expensive overall, but it has cheap areas like Leigh Park which used to be entirely council houses (i.e. made for poor people and run by the local council): https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leigh+Park,+Havant,+UK/@50.8663948,-0.9854767,3a,64.9y,63.29h,81.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s2z7pXItUov3gHqDKYcyejw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D8.87214493896991%26panoid%3D2z7pXItUov3gHqDKYcyejw%26yaw%3D63.2896498599043!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x487444eec35cfa8f:0xe0ed4519e9cb4e7d!8m2!3d50.8681413!4d-0.9866197!16zL20vMDV0cGg3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leigh+Park,+Havant,+UK/@50...
TechnicalVault 10mo ago
In the London suburbs you see the grocery delivery vans out and about all day every day. It very much depends on the neighbourhood though, mostly the slightly posh mums or elderly ones ordering.
- graemep 10mo ago
  In the UK, but not in London, but my order online sometimes because local shops do not have everything I want, it takes time to drive into town and shop at a supermarket, so when I am busy I order online. Like a lot of people who work from home there is big difference between the time required to shop, and taking a few minutes away from my desk to get some stuff from the door to the fridge.
roryirvine 10mo ago
I live in inner London. I have multiple grocery shops around me - within 10 minutes' walk I have a fishmonger, two butchers, two delicatessens, three bakeries, three greengrocers, four mid-sized organic/international grocers, six patisseries, a large Lidl, and a very large Sainsbury's supermarket. I visit those local shops once or twice almost every day to pick up fresh bits and pieces - but I still get bulky or heavy stuff delivered by Ocado (toilet roll, washing powder, everyday wine, that sort of thing).
- Computer0 10mo ago
  There is a gas station that sells candy and stale jerky, a hard, sidewalk-less 10 minutes walk from me (probably 20). Not sure it would be feasible to go anywhere else. -American
  - roryirvine 10mo ago
    That's the thing, though - you'd think that this would result in these "heavyweight" Ocado-style home delivery options being more viable in the US than in London. And yet, they're not. Sure, you have Doordash-style same-hour options which are largely based on someone picking stuff up from a local store on your behalf (we have lots of those too). But the Ocado/Kroger robotic hive fulfilment centres ought to be more efficient than that whilst offering higher quality by cutting out the labour-intensive warehouse -> store -> shelf -> checkout part of the process. I think some of it comes from a feeling of "that can't possibly work", perhaps as a hangover from the failure of Webvan during the dotcom boom. Maybe with some "well, I have to use my car for everything else, so I might as well use it to collect groceries too" layered on top. Which all points to it being a fairly intractable problem - there are a bunch of only tangentially-related issues that need sorting out before it can be become a widespread success.
    - mapt 10mo ago
      Another possibility: For perishable goods in the sort of SKU counts typically offered, it can't work unless it has a certain minimum scale. Local supermarkets supported by a largely automated (and has been for 30 years) regional distribution center have that scale from walk-in traffic. A new delivery service using high-density storage could save on real estate and labor costs on the backend, but it has to have runway to replace a lot of the local market (which may take a decade), and the whole time you're scaling, these low-velocity SKUs are literally spoiling while these expensive, high-throughput robots are mostly idle. The frontend costs of delivery are a separate category of problem. Replacing the regional distribution center instead with even higher levels of automation, and getting your groceries delivered from the same warehouse the supermarket is, would give you the scale from the start... but then that increases your frontend delivery costs and more importantly your frontend delivery latency; High latency is a much worse thing with milk than with books or hammers.
MEMORYC_RRUPTED 10mo ago
I live in a dense European city and all I ever do is order groceries online. I can order larger amounts in one go, so, batch order once every two weeks or so. Instead of having to fight with a machine to give back my empty cans/plastic bottles, I can just give the delivery person a crate and get my money back. Doesn't capture all my groceries, I love biking or walking to a smaller shop on occasion, or if I have a specific craving, but 90% of my groceries is delivery.
danielbln 10mo ago
Berlin here, people order from bike delivery grocery stores all the time. Not necessarily to do your weekend shopping, but still.
- jack_tripper 10mo ago
  Isn't this expensive after you factor in the extra margins and delivery costs?
  - danielbln 10mo ago
    Well, ish. German grocery prices are still quite low, comparatively. People use the delivery services not for full weekend shopping, more if you get home late and the fridge is empty, or a public holiday is coming up etc. Still, they are popular.
    - socksy 10mo ago
      Also, anecdotally they are more popular amongst less price sensitive people with disposable incomes, where paying for the convenience is worth it. But also, definitely not the Ocado model.
tpm 10mo ago
I live in a not-so-dense European city (Bratislava) and several our neighbours here in the extended city centre order groceries online, although we have a small shop within 100m and supermarkets within 2km of driving. It's very convenient for parents staying at home, for example.
chickory3 10mo ago
> I live in a dense European city and I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. I live in the U.S. and have almost never used a service like Instacart. Also, when I see the item I’m trying to order in Amazon is fulfilled by Whole Foods, I typically don’t buy it, because of the additional cost. I’d rather suffer a small amount of inconvenience to save several dollars on groceries, and often it may mean that I may need to order a different brand to pick up a similar item at a local store. However, I’ll gladly pay a little additional money for Amazon for many other items, because it’s convenient, shipping is included in Prime, and because I can get what I want. I make the majority of my retail purchases at a supermarket, followed by Amazon online (Prime only), then a very small percentage in-person at Target, Walmart, or a hardware/home supplies store or some random online retailer. The best I can do to “shop local” is to use a supermarket chain; there is no mom-and-pop to support that isn’t a chain unless it’s a restaurant. I don’t pretend that this is actually “shopping locally”. I’ve only participated in a boycott once or twice, because there is typically a practical reason for shopping when and where I do- either I need to shop then because I don’t get out much, or there’s a sale with actually lower prices, rather than the frequent “increase the price just to cut it to get you to order more” thing, which I also get sucked into, because I don’t have time to price shop, unless it’s with camelcamelcamel for Amazon.
- sokoloff 10mo ago
  Similar shopping story at our house, but I will observe that Home Depot has made amazing strides into competing with Amazon for delivery of items. They’ll ship me a $10 <thing my project needs> almost always for free and often next day, sometimes same day. And their prices are competitive in general with Amazon and supplyhouse.com. I don’t know that it’s a great (or even sustainable) offering from their business angle, but I love it as a consumer and DIYer!
  - squeedles 10mo ago
    I believe that HD (and Lowes) massively subsidizes their delivery ops simply because they don't want to cede the space to Amazon. It allows them to under-stock the stores but still maintain a reasonable range of products. However each time I have ordered, they have delivered a ~$2 part via Fedex, at no extra cost to me. They are a bigger fish than the mom and pop stores but that just means that it will take a little longer for the Amazon Prime monopoly cash flow to devour it.
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Mars008 10mo ago
There are old, disabled, sick who rather by online than walk. Normally I walk about a mile to grocery store several times a week. But when sick Amazon fresh or whole food is the best price/quality/time option.
EB-Barrington 10mo ago
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crazygringo 10mo ago
I find online grocery shopping shines for heavy and bulky things that are a huge pain to schlep home otherwise, especially stuff that lasts a while. All juices/waters/beers/wines, paper towels, lots of oranges/grapefruits, cleaning products like bleach/detergent, etc. When they carry them up to your fourth-floor door it's just so much easier. The smallish shops are good for stuff you can then easily carry in a bag by hand -- meat, veg, cheese, fresh bread.
- lazide 10mo ago
  If you are getting those things anyway, and only need small portions of the other, then why bother?
  - zamadatix 10mo ago
    With the exception of "lots of oranges/grapefruits", you only need to get the things in the first list perhaps every 1-3 months + you generally don't have to worry about them selecting a bad box of paper towels or stale cleaning products vs every time something in that second list is "why did they even bother trying to deliver this to me" quality.
  - roryirvine 10mo ago
    Because otherwise you'd have to do a lot more planning in advance. For instance, I called in to the patisserie this morning on a whim to treat myself to a pain au chocolat for breakfast. And I think I fancy cheese for dinner, so after work I'll nip out to the deli for some stilton and the greengrocer for walnuts and figs to go with it. I've already got fancy crackers and some good port from my last online delivery so that's everything I need for dinner. I'm used to being able to pick stuff up according to what I feel like eating on the day. Yeah, it wouldn't be a huge quality of life reduction to have to plan meals in advance but why bother if I don't have to? Plus, when I'm working from home, it keeps me from being entirely sedentary on a miserable, drizzly winter's day when I might not otherwise have bothered leaving the house, so it has physical & mental health benefits too.
    - 10mo ago
rsynnott 10mo ago
I live literally five minutes walk from a decently sized supermarket, ten minutes from another, and ten minutes on the bus from a great big one. One of my neighbours still gets supermarket delivery. There seems to be some sort of market for it, anyway...
- Forgeties79 10mo ago
  We use Costco delivery at my house because it’s 10-15min each way to go there plus an hour at the place shopping at best (long lines are common). With 2 kids you feel that time especially given how frequently you have to shop for groceries. It’s a more limited selection but there’s plenty to choose from and I’m done picking out my groceries in five minutes. They magically show up at my door for very little extra cost and I don’t have to bicker with my kids about grabbing a bunch of random stuff either. I’m not saying you’re wrong for feeling that way, but you’d be surprised how much work it is to go to a grocery store, no matter how close it is. It’s important to think about other factors here.
  - rsynnott 10mo ago
    > I’m not saying you’re wrong for feeling that way I mean I'm not feeling any particular way; I don't have a problem with the neighbours using it. I'm somewhat surprised that it makes sense for them, but each to their own. Myself, I just shop on the way home from work (my walk brings me past one of the supermarkets).
    - Forgeties79 10mo ago
      There appeared to be some tone/judgment in your previous comment but I guess I was mistaken!
  - wing-_-nuts 10mo ago
    >They magically show up at my door for very little extra cost I find tipping for grocery delivery adds pretty significantly to the cost.
wiether 10mo ago
I have this conversation regularly with friends, family, coworkers... And I've not yet been able to establish the right criteria to guess how a person is buying their groceries. Location, age, income, number of people in the household, physical ability... A single guy living in the city center with good income? Takes his car to go in big supermarket outside the city. A family with four kids living in the suburbs? Goes everyday in the small shops.
- VLM 10mo ago
  I've found two very general personality criteria for online ordering. Planners. The people who have a meal plan in Google Calendar for the next week and rarely have to "grab one thing on the way home from the store". The people who literally have no idea what they're eating on Thursday will go to the store today or tomorrow, who knows what they'll buy. Multitaskers. The people who do their grocery shopping on the couch while not really watching TV, or similar downtime when its job #2. I used to shop online while theoretically cooking. It'll be five minutes until this is done I'll spend a couple minutes looking in the fridge for eggs / milk / etc and add to next weeks order. A specific criteria I've found is people in general don't trust the delivery services for non-hyperprocessed food. I can trust a sealed bag of oreos is like every other mass produced food-adjacent substance. I want to select my own roast from whats on the shelf or my own apples. So people who only eat processed food products that come in plastic tend to like online ordering, people who mostly eat more natural food tend to dislike online ordering. You have to know people pretty well to determine their project management style and their diet.
  - adamc 10mo ago
    I don't think that works either. I'm not a meal planner, but I will usually just make do with food I've already bought. Nothing appeals? I might eat cheese toast or yogurt.
  - wiether 10mo ago
    That's interesting. I'm a planner and that's one of the reasons I don't order my groceries. If there's one thing I know I can't rely on, it's to be delivered on schedule and/or receiving exactly what I ordered. Meanwhile if I go to the store, I can find an alternative or go elsewhere if I can't find what I wanted. And I'm also a "natural food" person, so I'd rather pick things myself. Furthermore, if I crush a fruit on my way home, it's on me and I'll deal with it peacefully. If I'm being delivered a crush fruit, I'll get mad at the company I ordered from and I'll have find a way to be compensated.

by simgt 10mo ago

istinetz 10mo ago

judging by his name, he is perhaps in Sofia. I am also living here, and can confirm that many middle class people order groceries online.

dottjt 10mo ago

Maybe it's different in Europe, but at least in Australia you end up paying more at smaller shops, so I tend to avoid them. Is this the case in Europe as well?

londons_explore 10mo ago
Yes - groceries in a small shop are easily 2x the £/calorie in the UK compared to a big superstore.
- simgt 10mo ago
  Are you comparing the cost of strictly identical products or something else? I'd be very curious to have some sources if you have any
  - londons_explore 10mo ago
    No - small shops tend to sell mostly expensive branded products in smaller packets, whereas superstores sell larger packs of unbranded products.
    - jnd-cz 10mo ago
      In my country and city the small shops are largely stocked from buying the same things from larger shops combined with their own resupplying network. So you can either walk 100m to the corner shop, pay couple dozen % extra or walk 500m to the nearest Lidl or similar and save on basically the same products.
- adamc 10mo ago
  I would think the sensitivity to this would depend a lot on family size. Shopping for just myself... it doesn't matter much. Shopping for a family of 4 would be very different.
ant6n 10mo ago
For a first world country, Germany has ridiculously low food prices. These are found at the chain supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, etc.). They tend to be small by American big box standards (perhaps 1000sqm, so maybe 3x the size of a bodega). There's a lot of these supermarkets everywhere in the country, most people can easily come across them during usual daily trips.
simgt 10mo ago
Yes shops in dense urban areas are overall more expensive but there are discount stores like Lidl too. For higher quality products the difference is marginal (if you can even find an equivalent in a big suburban store). Having experienced both, my feeling is that it evens out if you account for the running cost of a car used often or delivery.
mrweasel 10mo ago
That probably depends on the country and what you mean by small. Smaller shops/supermarkets in Denmark tend to be cheaper, because they are run mostly as discount brands, while the larger stores a premium brands and have the more expensive options. However, Danish supermarkets are generally kept small by regulation, meaning that there are very few supermarket that could be considered big by international standards.

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ekianjo 10mo ago

> Smallish shops with bike racks in front of the door are simply too convenient Most people don't live in city centers. Because they are the most expensive places to live in.

simgt 10mo ago
You don't always need to be a city center to have this convenience, but you can't be in an area that is car centric... And usually when people compare the cost of both of these places, they only account for the cost per square meter of accommodation.
ben_w 10mo ago
You don't need to be in a city centre for small shops with bike racks. This is village with a population of a bit less than 3000, which I only know about because I have walked East-West across most of the state of Brandenburg (from Słubice in Poland to the city of Brandenburg) and this trains station was a convenient break point: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3459295,14.2800967,3a,60y,142.2h,86.75t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDFKO6NzBeDShx7bNWbPYuw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D3.2456239270868394%26panoid%3DDFKO6NzBeDShx7bNWbPYuw%26yaw%3D142.19715659295255!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3459295,14.2800967,3a,60y,14... Here's Aberystwyth, where I did my degree, population 13k, nearby villages boost that by about 6k, students by another 8k: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4145833,-4.0848806,3a,75y,196.65h,82.93t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sz4BcyFNmmrPIaHRCd15qMQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.068462889161324%26panoid%3Dz4BcyFNmmrPIaHRCd15qMQ%26yaw%3D196.65312216877732!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4145833,-4.0848806,3a,75y,19... I grew up on the south coast of the UK. Which is certainly expensive overall, but it has cheap areas like Leigh Park which used to be entirely council houses (i.e. made for poor people and run by the local council): https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leigh+Park,+Havant,+UK/@50.8663948,-0.9854767,3a,64.9y,63.29h,81.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s2z7pXItUov3gHqDKYcyejw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D8.87214493896991%26panoid%3D2z7pXItUov3gHqDKYcyejw%26yaw%3D63.2896498599043!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x487444eec35cfa8f:0xe0ed4519e9cb4e7d!8m2!3d50.8681413!4d-0.9866197!16zL20vMDV0cGg3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leigh+Park,+Havant,+UK/@50...

TechnicalVault 10mo ago

In the London suburbs you see the grocery delivery vans out and about all day every day. It very much depends on the neighbourhood though, mostly the slightly posh mums or elderly ones ordering.

graemep 10mo ago
In the UK, but not in London, but my order online sometimes because local shops do not have everything I want, it takes time to drive into town and shop at a supermarket, so when I am busy I order online. Like a lot of people who work from home there is big difference between the time required to shop, and taking a few minutes away from my desk to get some stuff from the door to the fridge.

roryirvine 10mo ago

I live in inner London. I have multiple grocery shops around me - within 10 minutes' walk I have a fishmonger, two butchers, two delicatessens, three bakeries, three greengrocers, four mid-sized organic/international grocers, six patisseries, a large Lidl, and a very large Sainsbury's supermarket. I visit those local shops once or twice almost every day to pick up fresh bits and pieces - but I still get bulky or heavy stuff delivered by Ocado (toilet roll, washing powder, everyday wine, that sort of thing).

Computer0 10mo ago
There is a gas station that sells candy and stale jerky, a hard, sidewalk-less 10 minutes walk from me (probably 20). Not sure it would be feasible to go anywhere else. -American
- roryirvine 10mo ago
  That's the thing, though - you'd think that this would result in these "heavyweight" Ocado-style home delivery options being more viable in the US than in London. And yet, they're not. Sure, you have Doordash-style same-hour options which are largely based on someone picking stuff up from a local store on your behalf (we have lots of those too). But the Ocado/Kroger robotic hive fulfilment centres ought to be more efficient than that whilst offering higher quality by cutting out the labour-intensive warehouse -> store -> shelf -> checkout part of the process. I think some of it comes from a feeling of "that can't possibly work", perhaps as a hangover from the failure of Webvan during the dotcom boom. Maybe with some "well, I have to use my car for everything else, so I might as well use it to collect groceries too" layered on top. Which all points to it being a fairly intractable problem - there are a bunch of only tangentially-related issues that need sorting out before it can be become a widespread success.
  - mapt 10mo ago
    Another possibility: For perishable goods in the sort of SKU counts typically offered, it can't work unless it has a certain minimum scale. Local supermarkets supported by a largely automated (and has been for 30 years) regional distribution center have that scale from walk-in traffic. A new delivery service using high-density storage could save on real estate and labor costs on the backend, but it has to have runway to replace a lot of the local market (which may take a decade), and the whole time you're scaling, these low-velocity SKUs are literally spoiling while these expensive, high-throughput robots are mostly idle. The frontend costs of delivery are a separate category of problem. Replacing the regional distribution center instead with even higher levels of automation, and getting your groceries delivered from the same warehouse the supermarket is, would give you the scale from the start... but then that increases your frontend delivery costs and more importantly your frontend delivery latency; High latency is a much worse thing with milk than with books or hammers.

MEMORYC_RRUPTED 10mo ago

I live in a dense European city and all I ever do is order groceries online. I can order larger amounts in one go, so, batch order once every two weeks or so. Instead of having to fight with a machine to give back my empty cans/plastic bottles, I can just give the delivery person a crate and get my money back. Doesn't capture all my groceries, I love biking or walking to a smaller shop on occasion, or if I have a specific craving, but 90% of my groceries is delivery.

danielbln 10mo ago

Berlin here, people order from bike delivery grocery stores all the time. Not necessarily to do your weekend shopping, but still.

jack_tripper 10mo ago
Isn't this expensive after you factor in the extra margins and delivery costs?
- danielbln 10mo ago
  Well, ish. German grocery prices are still quite low, comparatively. People use the delivery services not for full weekend shopping, more if you get home late and the fridge is empty, or a public holiday is coming up etc. Still, they are popular.
  - socksy 10mo ago
    Also, anecdotally they are more popular amongst less price sensitive people with disposable incomes, where paying for the convenience is worth it. But also, definitely not the Ocado model.

tpm 10mo ago

I live in a not-so-dense European city (Bratislava) and several our neighbours here in the extended city centre order groceries online, although we have a small shop within 100m and supermarkets within 2km of driving. It's very convenient for parents staying at home, for example.

chickory3 10mo ago

> I live in a dense European city and I don't know a single person who orders groceries online. I live in the U.S. and have almost never used a service like Instacart. Also, when I see the item I’m trying to order in Amazon is fulfilled by Whole Foods, I typically don’t buy it, because of the additional cost. I’d rather suffer a small amount of inconvenience to save several dollars on groceries, and often it may mean that I may need to order a different brand to pick up a similar item at a local store. However, I’ll gladly pay a little additional money for Amazon for many other items, because it’s convenient, shipping is included in Prime, and because I can get what I want. I make the majority of my retail purchases at a supermarket, followed by Amazon online (Prime only), then a very small percentage in-person at Target, Walmart, or a hardware/home supplies store or some random online retailer. The best I can do to “shop local” is to use a supermarket chain; there is no mom-and-pop to support that isn’t a chain unless it’s a restaurant. I don’t pretend that this is actually “shopping locally”. I’ve only participated in a boycott once or twice, because there is typically a practical reason for shopping when and where I do- either I need to shop then because I don’t get out much, or there’s a sale with actually lower prices, rather than the frequent “increase the price just to cut it to get you to order more” thing, which I also get sucked into, because I don’t have time to price shop, unless it’s with camelcamelcamel for Amazon.

sokoloff 10mo ago
Similar shopping story at our house, but I will observe that Home Depot has made amazing strides into competing with Amazon for delivery of items. They’ll ship me a $10 <thing my project needs> almost always for free and often next day, sometimes same day. And their prices are competitive in general with Amazon and supplyhouse.com. I don’t know that it’s a great (or even sustainable) offering from their business angle, but I love it as a consumer and DIYer!
- squeedles 10mo ago
  I believe that HD (and Lowes) massively subsidizes their delivery ops simply because they don't want to cede the space to Amazon. It allows them to under-stock the stores but still maintain a reasonable range of products. However each time I have ordered, they have delivered a ~$2 part via Fedex, at no extra cost to me. They are a bigger fish than the mom and pop stores but that just means that it will take a little longer for the Amazon Prime monopoly cash flow to devour it.

deleted 10mo ago

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Mars008 10mo ago

There are old, disabled, sick who rather by online than walk. Normally I walk about a mile to grocery store several times a week. But when sick Amazon fresh or whole food is the best price/quality/time option.

EB-Barrington 10mo ago

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crazygringo 10mo ago

I find online grocery shopping shines for heavy and bulky things that are a huge pain to schlep home otherwise, especially stuff that lasts a while. All juices/waters/beers/wines, paper towels, lots of oranges/grapefruits, cleaning products like bleach/detergent, etc. When they carry them up to your fourth-floor door it's just so much easier. The smallish shops are good for stuff you can then easily carry in a bag by hand -- meat, veg, cheese, fresh bread.

lazide 10mo ago
If you are getting those things anyway, and only need small portions of the other, then why bother?
- zamadatix 10mo ago
  With the exception of "lots of oranges/grapefruits", you only need to get the things in the first list perhaps every 1-3 months + you generally don't have to worry about them selecting a bad box of paper towels or stale cleaning products vs every time something in that second list is "why did they even bother trying to deliver this to me" quality.
- roryirvine 10mo ago
  Because otherwise you'd have to do a lot more planning in advance. For instance, I called in to the patisserie this morning on a whim to treat myself to a pain au chocolat for breakfast. And I think I fancy cheese for dinner, so after work I'll nip out to the deli for some stilton and the greengrocer for walnuts and figs to go with it. I've already got fancy crackers and some good port from my last online delivery so that's everything I need for dinner. I'm used to being able to pick stuff up according to what I feel like eating on the day. Yeah, it wouldn't be a huge quality of life reduction to have to plan meals in advance but why bother if I don't have to? Plus, when I'm working from home, it keeps me from being entirely sedentary on a miserable, drizzly winter's day when I might not otherwise have bothered leaving the house, so it has physical & mental health benefits too.
  - 10mo ago

rsynnott 10mo ago

I live literally five minutes walk from a decently sized supermarket, ten minutes from another, and ten minutes on the bus from a great big one. One of my neighbours still gets supermarket delivery. There seems to be some sort of market for it, anyway...

Forgeties79 10mo ago
We use Costco delivery at my house because it’s 10-15min each way to go there plus an hour at the place shopping at best (long lines are common). With 2 kids you feel that time especially given how frequently you have to shop for groceries. It’s a more limited selection but there’s plenty to choose from and I’m done picking out my groceries in five minutes. They magically show up at my door for very little extra cost and I don’t have to bicker with my kids about grabbing a bunch of random stuff either. I’m not saying you’re wrong for feeling that way, but you’d be surprised how much work it is to go to a grocery store, no matter how close it is. It’s important to think about other factors here.
- rsynnott 10mo ago
  > I’m not saying you’re wrong for feeling that way I mean I'm not feeling any particular way; I don't have a problem with the neighbours using it. I'm somewhat surprised that it makes sense for them, but each to their own. Myself, I just shop on the way home from work (my walk brings me past one of the supermarkets).
  - Forgeties79 10mo ago
    There appeared to be some tone/judgment in your previous comment but I guess I was mistaken!
- wing-_-nuts 10mo ago
  >They magically show up at my door for very little extra cost I find tipping for grocery delivery adds pretty significantly to the cost.

wiether 10mo ago

I have this conversation regularly with friends, family, coworkers... And I've not yet been able to establish the right criteria to guess how a person is buying their groceries. Location, age, income, number of people in the household, physical ability... A single guy living in the city center with good income? Takes his car to go in big supermarket outside the city. A family with four kids living in the suburbs? Goes everyday in the small shops.

VLM 10mo ago
I've found two very general personality criteria for online ordering. Planners. The people who have a meal plan in Google Calendar for the next week and rarely have to "grab one thing on the way home from the store". The people who literally have no idea what they're eating on Thursday will go to the store today or tomorrow, who knows what they'll buy. Multitaskers. The people who do their grocery shopping on the couch while not really watching TV, or similar downtime when its job #2. I used to shop online while theoretically cooking. It'll be five minutes until this is done I'll spend a couple minutes looking in the fridge for eggs / milk / etc and add to next weeks order. A specific criteria I've found is people in general don't trust the delivery services for non-hyperprocessed food. I can trust a sealed bag of oreos is like every other mass produced food-adjacent substance. I want to select my own roast from whats on the shelf or my own apples. So people who only eat processed food products that come in plastic tend to like online ordering, people who mostly eat more natural food tend to dislike online ordering. You have to know people pretty well to determine their project management style and their diet.
- adamc 10mo ago
  I don't think that works either. I'm not a meal planner, but I will usually just make do with food I've already bought. Nothing appeals? I might eat cheese toast or yogurt.
- wiether 10mo ago
  That's interesting. I'm a planner and that's one of the reasons I don't order my groceries. If there's one thing I know I can't rely on, it's to be delivered on schedule and/or receiving exactly what I ordered. Meanwhile if I go to the store, I can find an alternative or go elsewhere if I can't find what I wanted. And I'm also a "natural food" person, so I'd rather pick things myself. Furthermore, if I crush a fruit on my way home, it's on me and I'll deal with it peacefully. If I'm being delivered a crush fruit, I'll get mad at the company I ordered from and I'll have find a way to be compensated.