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Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

Here are two big reasons I won't use grocery delivery:

1. I can't see the produce/meat/seafood and pick the pieces I want. They aren't all the same, so this matters.

2. I can't get beer or wine delivered, and if I need to go to the grocery store to buy it, I might as well buy all my other groceries while I'm there.

#1 is probably not solvable. #2 is solvable but the US has 50 different state liquor law regimes, so it's a bit of a challenge.

So I'm not really surprised that Amazon isn't doing that much better than the others. Amazon is good at delivering things, but groceries aren't good things to deliver compared to the other stuff Amazon sells. Whole Foods in particular caters to shoppers who care about the quality of their meat and produce and want to examine it before they buy.

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Reason #1 is a big one in my experience trying out various grocery delivery services but the greatest problem IMO is in how there isn't a good way to deal with things that couldn't be found or are found to be out-of-stock. 3rd-party services don't have perfect visibility into the layout and inventory system of every grocery chain and each of their individual locations so there is almost always something that can't be delivered in every order. This isn't a problem whenever I run errands myself as I will be more familiar with my go-to stores, meaning I can find most anything (it seems many 3rd-party services push their workers so hard in terms of efficiency metrics that they will give up on locating an item if it isn't immediately apparent where it is) and I can also swing by another store while I'm out if a critical item isn't in stock at my go-to store.

Grocery delivery seemed really slick at first but after the 5th time receiving an order that is missing a critical item, the novelty (and the time savings/convenience/etc) wears off.

When I was ordering groceries from Instacart it let me choose the action in case the item is missing, like choosing a possible replacement (e.g. different brand of milk or frozen pizza) - for each individual item.

In Poland I had similar experience, and there's also an option "call me", when the person completing my order will tell me what the issue is and let me decide.

I realize, however, that the approach might not scale, especially when the phone call is required.

We’ve had amazon orders where we specified they should ask about a replacement. They sent an in app message without notification asking if some not very related item was a good replacement. Less than 30 seconds later, the order was closed and sent out for delivery. Happened with 3+ out of stock items. To amazons credit we said we didn’t approve those replacements and they gave them to us for free.

It definitely doesn't scale. A lot also depends on the diligence of the person shopping on your behalf. I've found YMMV quite a bit when you rely on their judgment.

With human shoppers, it should be a relatively fixed percentage of the time spent shopping, right? Why doesn't that scale?

On the other hand if you go high-automation you'll have more accurate inventory and the situation should improve.

It doesn't scale in the sense that it's harder to create a consistent experience as you add more shoppers. Some are good; more are terrible.

That works up to a point but sometimes you need something very particular where the substitutes available are inferior to the point of being wholly undesireable (like substituting hot italian sausage made in-store for prepackaged processed sausage filled with onlu god knows what) or niche enough that stores typically only stock 1 option (like clear, unflavored, unsweetened gelatin).

Missing either of those items is a deal breaker when you're planning for specific meals or dishes you plan to bring to an event.

Amazon is integrating with WF inventory systems so that information should be real time soon.

When I had Safeway deliver groceries to me, I noticed that they always selected the more expensive item over anything that was on sale - even when I selected something on sale, they would often claim "item not available, substituted"

I found that my delivered groceries were always more expensive than if I were able to pick out the items myself.

Obviously it will be different for everyone... but I personally dont like delivery for that reason.

Further, if I were amazon owning whole foods -- what I would focus on is minimally packaged items as a product line.

What would the impact to the overall cost of foods be if there were no need to flashy marketing/branding.

Vegetables are cheap in part because we don't need a ton of packaging and marketing around them.

My grandmother used Safeway's delivery until she passed... What was funny is how many times bread was "out of stock" or similar, or that she got Goat Milk... etc, I don't think she ever got a complete, correct order.

For that matter, the handful of times I've ordered from Prime Now my order has been messed up in one way or another. Amazon keeps pushing the $5 credits for delayed delivery of their main market deliveries, no thank you.

My grocery store has a delivery service. The store is often full of employees dashing through the aisles tossing random crap in their carts to fulfil delivery orders. These guys are being paid minimum wage. I'm not surprised by the high rate of incorrect orders.

That doesn't make sense. The most popular stuff (bread, milk etc) get the most shelf space and most prominent placing, and they also get plenty of order of it. It would take longer to get it wrong than get it right.

They can't just get bread but a specific size/brand. If they don't see immediately they leave. I've had decent luck with whole foods through primenow but I also had good luck with instacart until they lowered wages for the shoppers and tied it more heavily to orders fulfilled per hour. Once that happened all of sudden everything that was heavy was out of order and I'd start getting items that looked vaguely like what I ordered, like bone in chicken instead of boneless

Probably the only way to make this work reliably would be to build dedicated grocery delivery warehouses populated by picking robots.

Something I noticed with my local Kroger delivery service, is that most of the items have a silent markup through the delivery service! So like, maybe tomatoes are 0.69/pound in the store, but the same tomatoes are $1.30/pound through the website. And then I pay a delivery fee on top of that!

Need a blind check:

Craft a delivery order which is specific and identical, then order that from several delivery companies, as well as go in and purchase the order in-store. Rate all the experiences.

Delivery companies need a "silent shopper" -- like how a restaurant will hire people to come in and order and rate the experience.

Costco does this. We were very disappointed. Made it impossible for us to properly price how much we’d pay for the “free” delivery, making it a non-option.

> what I would focus on is minimally packaged items as a product line.

> What would the impact to the overall cost of foods be if there were no need to flashy marketing/branding.

Only a matter of time until the 365 line is rebranded as Amazon Basics.

#1 probably is solvable. In a warehouse, before the meat is packaged, take a 360 degree photo of the portion, and tie the photo to a unique identifier for that portion of meat. Users browse through all the portions in an app, pick the one they want, and that's the one which gets picked off the line and sent to them.

The real problem with that is Goodhart's Law. If you measure for visual appearance, you'll start targeting visual appearance, and the pressures which led suppliers and farmers to value large but flavorless product will only get worse.

The best solution for consumers is a simple weight measurement, and a focus on speeding up logistics to keep the product as fresh as possible. Amazon is uniquely situated to win the logistics game, but it'll take time.

You're forgetting the object is 3-D so it needs a much bigger picture (3282.8 degrees?), a firmness rating, a yet-to-be invented smell-o-vision attribute AND a complete update every hour.

Perfection is the enemy of good...

A picture would probably go 80% of the way there for most folks.

For packaged goods, maybe. Have you ever watched how people pick out specific apples from the bin? Do you ever sniff the package of raw chicken before you put it in your cart? Have you ever seen somebody tapping on a melon before buying it? Buying perishable foods is a sensory experience which cannot be easily mimicked.

I've never seen anyone sniff packaged raw chicken. I find the thought hilarious. Do you demand to sniff the meat when you go to a butcher? As for the other examples, supermarkets throw away so much that basically everything left is uniform. You get more variety at markets but even then the wastage is sadly high.

I take it you don't shop for perishables, much?

If you're going to a butcher, you should expect 4 star meat since you're paying 4 star prices. A butcher that sells questionable product probably won't be around for too long.

Whereas the chicken breast on special at the local Whole Foods may look fine but have a dodgy smell indicating that it's not as fresh as it may seem. Your nose will let you know if there's a lot of e. coli growing on that chicken.[0]

And no, everything on the shelf is not uniform. Watch how people buy fresh produce. Blemished produce gets put back.

[0]http://www.greatlakesbiotech.org/news/2017/6/4/the-smell-of-...

Late reply - my point still stands, I've never seen anyone sniff chicken in a supermarket. Whether you do or not, doesn't mean everyone else does. Practically, no one does.

That doesn't make sense. You have them cut it, ask to smell it, then give it back to wrap it?

Actually yes, a good butcher will offer you a chance to inspect the cut before packaging it, definitely including smell as an option. (Though arguably the things people smell for, you can often smell as it is being cut, without needing that much proximity.) Some of the higher end butchers even let you touch it (with gloves) if that helps you be satisfied with your cut.

Sorry, but most people don't care. You can pretend they do, but they don't. get out of your box and stop trying to sell to yourself.

Ever eat a freshly peeled, juicy, brown banana? What about a soft, mushy, bruised apple?

Me neither.

Those aren't the options, but nice attempt at a strawman...

> #1 probably is solvable. In a warehouse, before the meat is packaged, take a 360 degree photo of the portion, and tie the photo to a unique identifier for that portion of meat.

So, pick your meat yourself based off of old photos of the meat?

I think it's safe to presume that the cut won't change just because it's packaged.

Or have the person doing the grocery shopping live stream themselves in first person with the option to ping the recipient if there are any decision points that need attention.

That sounds horrible for everyone ... the shopper, customer, and everyone else in the store.

1. I can't see the produce/meat/seafood and pick the pieces I want. They aren't all the same, so this matters.

I think it depends on the region and the options available.

When I lived in a city where Peapod delivery was available, I had no qualms about having meat or vegetables delivered. It really did a great job with that.

Now I live in a place where the options are Amazon/Whole Foods, WalMart, Shipt, and a few others, and they're not very good at picking the best fresh products.

I think the difference is that Peapod doesn't have stores, so the "shoppers" can pick from an entire warehouse of produce. So if a head of broccoli looks "off," there are far more alternatives than someone "shopping" from an individual store's selection.

My solution is to have non-perishables delivered every two or three weeks, and perishables I pick up on the way home from work. It still saves a ton of time not having to do a full shopping run.

#2 is solvable but the US has 50 different state liquor law regimes, so it's a bit of a challenge.

More than that. In some states, it's county to county, or even town to town.

#2 true, but while it is complex, it isn't intractable.

My company enables direct to consumer beer and cider delivery. We mapped out the laws at the zip code level to avoid the legal issues and it works well.

The hard part is convincing the producers and consumers that it is even something they can do. And that shipping if actually worth it. Amazon has convinced the world that shopping is free.

Zip codes often span municipal, and sometimes state, boundaries. Do you just mark it as the most restrictive of all relevant jurisdictions?

I'm pretty interested in that. Which company is it? Is it in U.S.? And does it serve the Mid-South?

> I think the difference is that Peapod doesn't have stores, so the "shoppers" can pick from an entire warehouse of produce. So if a head of broccoli looks "off," there are far more alternatives than someone "shopping" from an individual store's selection.

This is the experience I've had with freshdirect. But I thought peapod actually was shopped from individual Stop & Shops?

It depends on the market. In Peapod’s home market (Chicagoland) it is independent.

I've gotten beer and wine delivered through Amazon from Whole Foods. They had to check my id at my door.

I think it varies by state law.

Instacart does this as well, and I can specifically order from a liquor store, at least in Chicago. Just have to show ID at delivery time.

#1 - Even grocery store pickup fails in this regard. I've had employees pick really sad looking vegetables (I am a proponent of "sell the odd looking veggies", but spare me your wilted celery that you haven't been able to sell in a week)

#2 - I can get beer/wine/liquor delivered where I live (Texas) but honestly I can't say that I've ever been in such a crunch where I need to get it delivered. And besides, I do enjoy asking my local Specs' employee recommendations on new beer/wine that I haven't tried that I just can't get with any delivery service.

With regard to number 1, I've found that some places that do grocery delivery in house (like Raley's,) apparently keep separate stock for delivery (discovered by asking) and it's often in better shape than what's on the floor. I think this is because there's some sort of 100% satisfaction policy to incentivize adoption. This has borne out in my practical experience as I've almost always been more than pleased with the produce delivered by in-house grocery delivery services. The only thing I don't love is that the online interface isn't always synced accurately with what's in stock, so often I get calls having to hash out substitutions before they can deliver.

WRT alcohol, I personally usually shop for that stuff at a specialty store like Ben's or Total Wine. I realize other people have different shopping habits, but I would have to make a special trip for groceries separate from my alcohol trip, and I appreciate that delivery helps me save a trip.

Re #2: At least in Seattle I can get beer and wine shipped via Prime Now.

Honestly, alcohol is one of the better use cases of Prime Now, since it's always a bummer to have someone get alcohol when it runs out at a party.

Assuming you get what you want instead of a bottle of Apple Juice instead.

1 is solvable and has already been solved by competitors.

What I believe is an EU based VC funded startup, HelloFresh, delivers boxes with recipes + the necessary ingredients to your home. We've been a customer for a while, and everything they send is extremely fresh. Their fish is fresher and better than anything I've been able to buy in my city (not by the sea), including specialized fish shops.

They're definitely not cheap, but they've proven that "I can't see what produce I get" is not a problem to customers if the quality is both consistent and extremely high. For all the criticism they've been getting in here in the Netherlands, their fast-moving consumer goods logistics is spectacular.

HelloFresh is the worst of the mealkit services I've tried. If you like it that much, I would recommend trying out some of the other ones.

Are you referring to the food quality and freshness?

Note that I said nothing about their service, the tech, the price, the amount, etc. That's all pretty shitty IMO.

Yes my comment was purely on food quality.

My big complaint from HelloFresh was that while you can sign up online, you have to call them to cancel, which makes it hard to suspend for extended trips. Consequently I just cancelled once and never went back.

Having a more involved mechanism for cancellation than sign up is one of more nefarious "dark patterns" which I cannot stand.

I've cancelled online many times. The only way I find them to be priced right is when they offer a deal.

If these places could lower shipping costs somehow & get their prices down a bit while keeping quality high, I would gladly order more. I'm amazed places like Walmart, Target & large grocers haven't dominated this market with similar boxes you can pick up at a store or have delivered to your house.

The only option available to me was to call to cancel, though suspend was available online.

#1 reminds me of the initial hesitations of buying clothes online. “The internet is fine for buying gadgets, but I need to try clothes on before purchasing them to make sure they fit right.”

We’re still at the early adopter phase of online grocery, but I’d be very surprised if this isn’t mainstream in a decade. Which is why I’d guess all major players take it seriously (from Walmart curbside to Kroger Clicklist).

Disclaimer: I work for a company associated with the online grocery space (though we aren’t online grocers). But I work here because I think it’s a solvable problem with tremendous upside to actually add value and convenience to people’s lives. Who wants to go to a mall to buy clothes these days?...

3. Sold out of that, replaced by inferior item. 7/10 things replaced on my last order. Argh!

Other huge reason is poor data. Prime now has a ton of stuff you can get from the stores but a lot are either mis categorized, missing pictures, missing nutritional info, size of package not listed, etc. One good example was a frozen pizza I assumed was full size. Everything seemed to indicate as much including the price. When it was delivered it was a tiny personal pizza. Another case was hamburger patties. Wasn't clear how many or what the weight was.

If they want me to shop online they need to make sure all of the information from the package is listed on the page.

>Whole Foods in particular caters to shoppers who care about the quality of their meat and produce and want to examine it before they buy.

That may be true but I could equally well argue that, because Whole Foods tends to have higher and more consistent quality than many other chains, a random pick from the product department or meat counter is likely to result in something I'm fine with. At least that's my impression though I don't shop at Whole Foods with any great regularity.

I know a lot of people who shop there and they are very demanding customers. I doubt they would be willing to trust someone else to pick their produce. Some of them don't even trust their spouses to do it...

If you live in the bay area, you may want to try goodeggs.com. We've tried all the delivery services and this is the only one that hasn't been terrible.

It delivers alcohol no problem. You still can't pick your produce/meat/seafood but because of how goodeggs sources we've never had a single problem with what we get delivered, and we're also very picky about those things.

I'm not affiliated with goodeggs in any way...just a passionate fan.

Its not allways about quality, its also about size, thickness of a steak etc

Quality is a pretty broad term, I know, but I know those things matter.

If you try it, you may be pleasantly surprised. If you don't want to, well, no skin off my nose. I don't own any stock.

Regarding #2, within a single state you'll have different rules per county. Alcohol delivery is laden with landmines.

I think 1. is partly a symptom of the target audience not being people that want produce/meat/seafood. Instead, it targets people who are buying the presealed and uniform stuff, even if they're buying produce.

#1 why is this so important? Once in a while you get the lesser piece, the other times the better. And I assume that products which don't have a sufficient high quality will (should) not be delivered.

> #1 why is this so important? Once in a while you get the lesser piece, the other times the better

That assumes the store isn't binning meat and produce. It makes some sense to direct the merely acceptable items to people buying sight-unseen, and reserve the appealing items for those buying in person who can reject lower quality items. The latter group will likely pass over the merely acceptable, resulting in more unsold food waste and worse sales.

#1 is solvable through dynamic pricing. Why do you need to pick out your pieces of produce individually? You're assessing the quality, using your human senses. We just need quantitative measures of quality (high, medium, low) and discount the lower quality produce.

The problem with that is that different people will give a different quantitative value. Something low for you would be medium for me, and something else that is medium for you would be low for me. It's not a partial ordering.

I'm not sure that's meaningfully true. There are two kinds of people who pick their own produce with care. The first kind have an irrational desire to choose their own produce because they've seen others do it. The second kind do it because they are actually good at using the senses of sight, touch, and smell to identify how ripe produce is. This can include weight, firmness, color, texture, and many other characteristics. But they can absolutely be quantified in an objective way. For anyone who has a rational basis for choosing.

You don’t have much granularity to work with though. It’s either good enough, weird, or not edible.

Produce is already sorted by at the processor for auxiliary products such as sauces and processed goods where the consumer would never see them.

The stuff reaching store shelves is already supposed to be premium. Then you have a company like Imperfect Produce will take whatever is at the bottom of that group and deliver it to you for about the same price as going to the grocer but alongside an anti food waste social good marketing angle, which I think mostly works on the fact that all that produce has already been judged to be good and you can’t tell so you might as well alleviate some consumer guilt.

Also how much market pricing power could put on a $0.50 cucumber. We’re literally talking nickels between categories.

What you’re really missing out on is that picking out food activates some finely tuned gatherer senses that people find both enjoyable in the moment and when cooking/eating the food; “I bought some great avacados this morning”.

I think his point was that different people prefer different things.

Like maybe person A wants really nice looking stuff, but eats it infrequently so isn't bothered by getting items that aren't quite ripe yet, whereas person B may not be as "picky" but it has to be peak ripeness.

#1 is solvable to a certain extent by the store providing photos of the specific units you can order.

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