I do think grocery shopping is definitely in need of a large dose of increased efficiency. It dawned on me last time I went grocery shopping with my wife and son just how much time and effort can be wasted grocery shopping.
1. We drove to the store. 2. Walked around the store getting everything. 3. Checked out and put all our stuff in bags. 4. Put the bags in the car, drove home. 5. Took the bags from the car into the house. 6. Emptied the bags and put everything away where it belongs.
Steps 1-5 should be eliminated by some sort of automation. Services like Peapod are starting to do this, but they're quite a bit more expensive.
When you think about it, you have a large number of people within a certain radius of a local grocery store all buying items from that store on a regular basis, but usually driving there themselves over and over.
Seems like it would be more efficient (in an ideal world) to have the store make regular rounds (like the mailman does) to the houses with their orders.