Hacker News Reader

Comment by kareemsabri | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a small market and not a very good business.

Well the demand is clearly there as these things took off and people use them.

The profitability is the question here though - the market clearly wants this service, but at what price? To make it so that it is profitable for the business while also offering a fair wage to the workers will probably increase prices to the point where it is no longer desirable from users.

I would love if someone could run me some numbers. What is a realistic price for delivery of groceries where employee and business are both happy? 10 bucks per delivery? 20? Right now most of these rapid delivery services charge some crazy low fee, like under 2 bucks, and of course that doesn't work in the long run. But what is a real price for delivery?

I don't know a lot about the business, but Zapp says its delivery people are employees.

If a supermarket can be profitable while it employs people to stack the shelves, man the checkouts etc., why can't you just move those people out into the neighborhood as delivery people?

Peapod has been around since pre-Web 1.0 in the US. It's owned by a grocery chain which probably changes the economics somewhat. But they charge a $10 base price (non rapid delivery) so I assume at least the breakeven for a fairly low overhead business is somewhere in that range.

Hannaford's pickup service is $5--which COVID aside seems like it would be mostly useful only in specific cases.

Whatever the living wage is for that area. Business would be happy with literal slaves. Thus, their opinion should never matter.

Of course demand for groceries delivered in 15 minutes for the same price as you going to get them yourself is there. Add in the true costs, remove the VC subsidy, and see how well demand holds up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com