I imagine Safeway didn't want to take on the risk of trying to solve tricky problems, e.g., with inventory tracking. It might have legitimately made more sense

I imagine Safeway didn't want to take on the risk of trying to solve tricky problems, e.g., with inventory tracking. It might have legitimately made more sense for them to be conservative, since they had an existing business to manage. If internet groceries had turned out to be easy, they'd have a piece. Observing what Safeway didn't try could have been a key piece of Instacart's success.