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Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure thi

Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with their nonsense is that some of their prices are insane and they have easy returns, for example $0.85 for a box of Barilla pasta. They actually don’t accept returns in store and just refund you automatically in the app (Returnless returns). It’s pretty silly and rife for abuse. I also found a loophole with the Amazon.com return grocery credit. The systems are separate for the $10 off $40 coupon and you just scan a QR code in the store to get it. It turns out you can just take a photo of their QR code and reuse it over and over again.

liveoneggs 8mo ago
The delivery shoppers are especially bad at whole foods. There really must be a critical mass where having a grocery warehouse makes more sense than these people meandering around.
- Bluecobra 8mo ago
  Yep, my local Amazon Fresh store felt like it was already a distribution center with the cold fluorescent lighting, gray shelves and gray concrete floors.
- cjrp 8mo ago
  See Ocado, although things aren't going so well for them at the moment.
- kevstev 8mo ago
  There is actually. I used to work in grocery e-commerce. The model is pickers in a store --> a "dark store" that looks more like a home Depot with only pickers, not open to public --> warehouse like environment with various levels of automation. This was a bit before the model of having Uber driver type delivery though. I am guessing that having the deliverers be close to the deliverees make it more economical to keep them in stores until a larger scale is reached. The dark store+ model was also predicated on a more factory floor like environment with only FTEs present. Think pallets moving about among the pickers- not too hard to work around IMHO but maybe the lawyers and insurers feel differently. I still feel the overreaching factor is that in dense urban centers there is no cheap commercial/industrial space that is also in close proximity to customers.
  - Bluecobra 8mo ago
    Peapod? I really miss their drivers, I had the nicest guy on my route and they always handled cold deliveries properly in those big green crates.
    - liveoneggs 8mo ago
      FreshDirect in NYC is the gold standard.
    - kevstev 8mo ago
      No, Walmart. Their drivers were actually quite nice as well, at least the ones I met. The standards were high, I have mixed feelings about Walmart overall with respect to their line level employees, but in general everyone meant well. This was quite a long time ago though, and we were still in "startup" mode and focused on gaining market share, as opposed to focusing on squeezing out as much profit as possible.
  - liveoneggs 8mo ago
    I can see how minimizing drive times is cheaper in aggregate but there is just so much commercial space here in Atlanta.. I suppose you pay for the retail stores either way so the threshold to justify a "dark store" is pretty high unless it can double up as the regional grocery warehouse or something.
PaulHoule 8mo ago
Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.
- ceejayoz 8mo ago
  I'm in Wegmans' home town, and the enshittification process has hit them hard in recent years.
  - tmoertel 8mo ago
    What changes have you noticed?
    - ceejayoz 8mo ago
      My store used to have a big bread oven, desserts made in-house, fresh prepared food made in woks etc. right next to the buffet table, etc. All gone now; the coffee shop got replaced by robots, they tried to close the seafood counter (with enough negative feedback they reversed it), etc. It's all made centrally now, for 3x the price and half the taste. All the kids went and got MBAs and the third generation family business curse hit hard as a result. I've heard locals say "Bob Wegman loved people, Danny Wegman loves food, and Colleen Wegman loves money".
      - PaulHoule 8mo ago
        In Ithaca the coffee went downhill lately, that's for sure. On the other hand, my favorite drip coffee anywhere is made by machines that brew it by the cup.
        ceejayoz 8mo ago
        Honestly, it's not even about the coffee. The lady working there would see me, greet me by name, ask after my kids, and start making my drink without me having to tell her my order. That was part of the Wegmans magic for a long, long time. (Same reason closing the seafood counter got a big backlash. There's a similarly awesome guy working there. For now.)
randycupertino 8mo ago
I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a comparison I put the same items in my cart for Amazon fresh and Walmart and it was $21 at Amazon fresh and $36 at Walmart. WAY cheaper than Instacart too.
- lelandfe 8mo ago
  > operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their competing product)
  - felixgallo 8mo ago
    I'm not aware of any Amazon product lines or organizations that specializes in devices for truckers. Can you provide a listing?
    - lelandfe 8mo ago
      Truckers are the biggest demo but it's sold under a generic category.
      - felixgallo 8mo ago
        huh. What's the product listing? I don't think this story rings true.
        serf 8mo ago
spike021 8mo ago
> You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders To be fair I've noticed this in multiple supermarket chains the last few years. Although they aren't usually employees, they are instacart runners or whatever. I go fairly often to a Sprouts grocery store and there are times I need to avoid multiple people clearly doing an Instacart run with 2+ carts full of items. Shelves are often emptier than they used to be also at these times.
- coredog64 8mo ago
  Walmart is particularly bad for this: The employees do the picking and they have giant carts that monopolize the aisle. You're stuck waiting for them to scan and bag 8-10 popular items before you can get in there and grab the one thing you need.
- phatfish 8mo ago
  Having watched these people when I do my own shopping, it made me realise, if i ever needed get someone to shop for me, it wouldn't be on a busy weekend.
RIMR 8mo ago
For a while, they had two stackable 10-off-40 coupons, and a 2-off-10 coupon, and it activated $36, so you could buy $36 worth of groceries for $14.
tshaddox 8mo ago
Interestingly, we only went to our local Amazon Fresh store a handful of times but it was always a perfectly fine experience. It seemed reasonably clean, well-stocked, and well-organized. Other than those new self-checkout shopping carts (which also actually worked well, even weighing produce), it was fairly indistinguishable from other grocery stores in our area. Amazon Go, on the other hand, always seemed like a dead man walking. It's a fun novelty to check out and grab some junk food, but it must be far more expensive to build and run than a 7-Eleven, and it's not even meaningfully more convenient. I should also add that we've been pretty happy Amazon Fresh delivery customers for a couple of years now (we resisted regular grocery delivery for a long time...until we had a child).
- malfist 8mo ago
  You should also know that the AI that enabled the Amazon Go experience was the Actually Indians type of AI. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actually-1-000-people-in-india-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual...
- none_to_remain 8mo ago
  They had Amazon Go by Grand Central Terminal and it was great to grab a snack and drink on the way to the train, with no worry about being delayed by the checkout line. I figured they had people in India verifying things but saw no reason to care as a customer.
- _delirium 8mo ago
  > those new self-checkout shopping carts I'm going to miss those. Two nice things about them compared to a normal self-checkout: 1) you see things ring up as you shop instead of at the end, which is nice in case of errors or unexpected prices, 2) you can shop directly into a reusable bag or backpack instead of repacking everything at the end.
hung 8mo ago
lol are you me? There was also a loophole with the coupons where it only used the total before discounts to validate the limit was met, so you could buy something that was $10 or 2 for $15, but the 2 would count as $20 towards your $40 limit. I moved away from Seattle a while back so I'm not sure if they ever closed that one. I really miss getting all those cheap groceries!
sylens 8mo ago
Spot on assessment of an Amazon Fresh store. Their big gimmick is a cart where you can scan your groceries as you put them in it, then you just walk through a designated check out lane and it charges your card automatically for whats inside. I've tried it a few times and I can't say its preferrable for any type of shopping trip. Only picking up a few things? You're faster with a basket and self checkout. A big weekly food order for a family of four? All of your groceries won't fit in their special cart because it needs room for the scale and the scanners. The prices are indeed pretty insane and the produce is always great, but the stores are ghost towns most of the time. The only people inside are those using it as a spot to drop off Amazon.com returns and those fulfilling pick-up orders
- Bluecobra 8mo ago
  They could never get that cart right. I tried using that cart again last week and it was still glitchy and it seems like you waste more time screwing around with the cart. I found it quicker to just use the normal check out since nobody shops there anyway. At my local store, you could go there on a Saturday afternoon and find only one cashier with no line. The Trader Joe’s nearby would be absolutely jammed.
drysine 8mo ago
>$0.85 for a box of Barilla pasta That's cool. Which one? The cheapest one in Russia costs about $1.20 [0] > a photo of their QR code and reuse it over and over again Don't you think it's a wrong thing to do? [0] https://5ka.ru/product/makarony-barilla-dzhirandole-n-34-450g--4037666/ https://5ka.ru/product/makarony-barilla-dzhirandole-n-34-450...

liveoneggs 8mo ago

The delivery shoppers are especially bad at whole foods. There really must be a critical mass where having a grocery warehouse makes more sense than these people meandering around.

Bluecobra 8mo ago
Yep, my local Amazon Fresh store felt like it was already a distribution center with the cold fluorescent lighting, gray shelves and gray concrete floors.
cjrp 8mo ago
See Ocado, although things aren't going so well for them at the moment.
kevstev 8mo ago
There is actually. I used to work in grocery e-commerce. The model is pickers in a store --> a "dark store" that looks more like a home Depot with only pickers, not open to public --> warehouse like environment with various levels of automation. This was a bit before the model of having Uber driver type delivery though. I am guessing that having the deliverers be close to the deliverees make it more economical to keep them in stores until a larger scale is reached. The dark store+ model was also predicated on a more factory floor like environment with only FTEs present. Think pallets moving about among the pickers- not too hard to work around IMHO but maybe the lawyers and insurers feel differently. I still feel the overreaching factor is that in dense urban centers there is no cheap commercial/industrial space that is also in close proximity to customers.
- Bluecobra 8mo ago
  Peapod? I really miss their drivers, I had the nicest guy on my route and they always handled cold deliveries properly in those big green crates.
  - liveoneggs 8mo ago
    FreshDirect in NYC is the gold standard.
  - kevstev 8mo ago
    No, Walmart. Their drivers were actually quite nice as well, at least the ones I met. The standards were high, I have mixed feelings about Walmart overall with respect to their line level employees, but in general everyone meant well. This was quite a long time ago though, and we were still in "startup" mode and focused on gaining market share, as opposed to focusing on squeezing out as much profit as possible.
- liveoneggs 8mo ago
  I can see how minimizing drive times is cheaper in aggregate but there is just so much commercial space here in Atlanta.. I suppose you pay for the retail stores either way so the threshold to justify a "dark store" is pretty high unless it can double up as the regional grocery warehouse or something.

PaulHoule 8mo ago

Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.

ceejayoz 8mo ago
I'm in Wegmans' home town, and the enshittification process has hit them hard in recent years.
- tmoertel 8mo ago
  What changes have you noticed?
  - ceejayoz 8mo ago
    My store used to have a big bread oven, desserts made in-house, fresh prepared food made in woks etc. right next to the buffet table, etc. All gone now; the coffee shop got replaced by robots, they tried to close the seafood counter (with enough negative feedback they reversed it), etc. It's all made centrally now, for 3x the price and half the taste. All the kids went and got MBAs and the third generation family business curse hit hard as a result. I've heard locals say "Bob Wegman loved people, Danny Wegman loves food, and Colleen Wegman loves money".
    - PaulHoule 8mo ago
      In Ithaca the coffee went downhill lately, that's for sure. On the other hand, my favorite drip coffee anywhere is made by machines that brew it by the cup.
      - ceejayoz 8mo ago
        Honestly, it's not even about the coffee. The lady working there would see me, greet me by name, ask after my kids, and start making my drink without me having to tell her my order. That was part of the Wegmans magic for a long, long time. (Same reason closing the seafood counter got a big backlash. There's a similarly awesome guy working there. For now.)

randycupertino 8mo ago

I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a comparison I put the same items in my cart for Amazon fresh and Walmart and it was $21 at Amazon fresh and $36 at Walmart. WAY cheaper than Instacart too.

lelandfe 8mo ago
> operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their competing product)
- felixgallo 8mo ago
  I'm not aware of any Amazon product lines or organizations that specializes in devices for truckers. Can you provide a listing?
  - lelandfe 8mo ago
    Truckers are the biggest demo but it's sold under a generic category.
    - felixgallo 8mo ago
      huh. What's the product listing? I don't think this story rings true.
      - serf 8mo ago

spike021 8mo ago

> You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders To be fair I've noticed this in multiple supermarket chains the last few years. Although they aren't usually employees, they are instacart runners or whatever. I go fairly often to a Sprouts grocery store and there are times I need to avoid multiple people clearly doing an Instacart run with 2+ carts full of items. Shelves are often emptier than they used to be also at these times.

coredog64 8mo ago
Walmart is particularly bad for this: The employees do the picking and they have giant carts that monopolize the aisle. You're stuck waiting for them to scan and bag 8-10 popular items before you can get in there and grab the one thing you need.
phatfish 8mo ago
Having watched these people when I do my own shopping, it made me realise, if i ever needed get someone to shop for me, it wouldn't be on a busy weekend.

RIMR 8mo ago

For a while, they had two stackable 10-off-40 coupons, and a 2-off-10 coupon, and it activated $36, so you could buy $36 worth of groceries for $14.

tshaddox 8mo ago

Interestingly, we only went to our local Amazon Fresh store a handful of times but it was always a perfectly fine experience. It seemed reasonably clean, well-stocked, and well-organized. Other than those new self-checkout shopping carts (which also actually worked well, even weighing produce), it was fairly indistinguishable from other grocery stores in our area. Amazon Go, on the other hand, always seemed like a dead man walking. It's a fun novelty to check out and grab some junk food, but it must be far more expensive to build and run than a 7-Eleven, and it's not even meaningfully more convenient. I should also add that we've been pretty happy Amazon Fresh delivery customers for a couple of years now (we resisted regular grocery delivery for a long time...until we had a child).

malfist 8mo ago
You should also know that the AI that enabled the Amazon Go experience was the Actually Indians type of AI. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actually-1-000-people-in-india-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual...
none_to_remain 8mo ago
They had Amazon Go by Grand Central Terminal and it was great to grab a snack and drink on the way to the train, with no worry about being delayed by the checkout line. I figured they had people in India verifying things but saw no reason to care as a customer.
_delirium 8mo ago
> those new self-checkout shopping carts I'm going to miss those. Two nice things about them compared to a normal self-checkout: 1) you see things ring up as you shop instead of at the end, which is nice in case of errors or unexpected prices, 2) you can shop directly into a reusable bag or backpack instead of repacking everything at the end.

hung 8mo ago

lol are you me? There was also a loophole with the coupons where it only used the total before discounts to validate the limit was met, so you could buy something that was $10 or 2 for $15, but the 2 would count as $20 towards your $40 limit. I moved away from Seattle a while back so I'm not sure if they ever closed that one. I really miss getting all those cheap groceries!

sylens 8mo ago

Spot on assessment of an Amazon Fresh store. Their big gimmick is a cart where you can scan your groceries as you put them in it, then you just walk through a designated check out lane and it charges your card automatically for whats inside. I've tried it a few times and I can't say its preferrable for any type of shopping trip. Only picking up a few things? You're faster with a basket and self checkout. A big weekly food order for a family of four? All of your groceries won't fit in their special cart because it needs room for the scale and the scanners. The prices are indeed pretty insane and the produce is always great, but the stores are ghost towns most of the time. The only people inside are those using it as a spot to drop off Amazon.com returns and those fulfilling pick-up orders

Bluecobra 8mo ago
They could never get that cart right. I tried using that cart again last week and it was still glitchy and it seems like you waste more time screwing around with the cart. I found it quicker to just use the normal check out since nobody shops there anyway. At my local store, you could go there on a Saturday afternoon and find only one cashier with no line. The Trader Joe’s nearby would be absolutely jammed.

drysine 8mo ago

>$0.85 for a box of Barilla pasta That's cool. Which one? The cheapest one in Russia costs about $1.20 [0] > a photo of their QR code and reuse it over and over again Don't you think it's a wrong thing to do? [0] https://5ka.ru/product/makarony-barilla-dzhirandole-n-34-450g--4037666/ https://5ka.ru/product/makarony-barilla-dzhirandole-n-34-450...