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Comment by SideburnsOfDoom | Hacker News Reader

> This is a thing in the UK

Today (Friday) The earliest slot at Ocado (A big established grocery delivery service / Online supermarket with own robot warehouses etc, in the UK) will give me is Sunday morning. I do not know if this is due to cut-off times or slot availability but it is moot.

I'm not worried, I plan these orders weeks in advance (and you can add or remove until the night before).

Other smaller services (e.g. Deliveroo, weezy, gorillas) will come much faster, but they typically just collect and cover the last mile. This seems to be a growth area lately, two of those companies are new.

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For me, Morrissons via Amazon is same day most of the time now. Asda has just announced that they launching 1h delivery.

They can do that because, like Tesco, they have supermarkets nearby so it's 'just' a question of getting someone to pick your stuff from the aisles and someone else to drive to you (funnily most Morrissons/Amazon delivery people drive very fancy cars in my area, I have had big Mercedes and BMNWs, maybe private hire taxis filling time).

I don't think Ocado has a dense enough network of local warehouses.

> I don't think Ocado has a dense enough network of local warehouses.

yes, AFAIK, Ocado relies on a few large highly automated warehouses. (1)

The main issue seems to be that the level of automation is so high that a fire is not noticed soon enough. This has happened twice. (2)

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

2) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57883332

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-49071456

I checked Tesco when posting, and could get a late evening delivery slot on Saturday. Collection I could get 7am Saturday morning. Not saying the system is perfect, but it's definitely possible to get next day delivery on groceries. Even Amazon doesn't guarantee next day on everything after a certain time, and I see this as much the same - you snooze, you gotta wait an few more hours.

I am interested in a deliveroo/just-eat style grocery shopping solution though. If the store can pick and pack your order in 3 hours and put it at the front of the store for collection by a group of drivers that are constantly in rotation, how is that any different from collecting my takeaway and driving it to my house? It really isn't, but it's also not an urgent operation that needs such a quick turn around time IMO. I'm sure others will pay for the convenience, but I'm personally happy waiting 12 hours and collecting it myself so long as I don't have to step inside the store.

> I am interested in a deliveroo/just-eat style grocery shopping solution though

AFAIK, Deliveroo do this already. (1) I've never had cause to try it though.

JustEat might be less inclined to do that as they have traditionally relied more on the individual restaurants' fleet of drivers (e.g. owner's cousin on a moped) rather than running their own fleet.

https://deliveroo.co.uk/cuisines/grocery-takeaway

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