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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

I would pay a small premium for a 'pick up at store' service like I can at some retailers. Buy the item online, go to the store, go to the customer service counter and pickup the your purchases.

Imagine just going to the grocery store drive-through and picking up your groceries that you've chosen beforehand.

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I am not sure where you live but this is pretty common in the north east (ShopRite etc.). To me though, I feel like there are misaligned incentives when employees pick food vs. the customer picks the food. Why should the employee care if the bread is going bad tomorrow instead of a week? The added time-savings just don't offset that concern for me.

I can't say that concerns with expiration dates are high on my list of issues when I'm grocery shopping. That said, if I'm going to order online anyway, I'm not sure why I wouldn't just have it delivered--maybe for a few bucks more--than driving to the store. Maybe if I'm not very mobile but can still drive, but then I still need to unload the car. I don't really understand the use case.

Sometimes you can't be sure when you'll be at home to receive them.

There's still a time window for pickup though. So you have to schedule in any case.

We have this in the UK for several large supermarkets (Walmart-owned ASDA for example), as well as regular home-delivery. I believe ASDA brand it as 'click and collect' - When you arrive at the store, you go to a touchscreen kiosk and enter some code and someone comes out with a pallet of your shopping so you can take it to your car.

while they dont have drive throughs, this is pretty common at many stores for no fee

http://www.walmart.com/cp/1105733

http://www.homedepot.com/c/pick_up_in_store

https://www.macys.com/m/campaign/splash/buy-online-pickup-in...

http://www.target.com/c/target-shipping/-/N-551st

http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/buy-online-pick-up-in-store

I use walmarts site2store some times; I would use it more if they would allow me to use it for groceries (they don't let you use it for 'perishable' products).

There's a walmart near me that has been testing this. And it is essentially a drive thru. You place an order online (its for groceries, so yes you can order perishables), and have the option to either drive to the store park in a designated parking spot and push a button, an associate brings out your order, OR, they'll deliver it to your home.

At least in the Northeast US, Hannaford has started offering this. Personally, I'm not interested but I see the benefit for some people.

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