[HN Gopher] Walmart is piloting a pricier 2-hour 'express' groce...
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Walmart is piloting a pricier 2-hour 'express' grocery delivery
service
Author : hhs
Score : 50 points
Date : 2020-05-06 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| battery_cowboy wrote:
| Yet another way a huge corp is using this pandemic to make more
| profit. Now, some elderly person, cancer patient, etc won't be
| able to get a delivery slot because they cannot afford the
| premium for the faster service, and this will take resources from
| the cheaper delivery choice.
|
| Edit: spare me from your acrobatics that make this sound like a
| fair move by _such_ a wholesome company. I 'm sorry if I don't
| bend over for the company that tells employees to go on food
| stamps instead of paying a fair wage.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| If it's so lucrative why isn't there an UberEats for groceries
| (if there isn't one) and why can't these people just use those
| services?
|
| imo saying they're using the pandemic for profit by giving you
| an option to not have to wait 2 weeks is like saying the
| drivers of these services are just taking advantage of the
| pandemic. It becomes pretty meaningless.
| mey wrote:
| Instacart is probably the closest, but like UberEats they
| require the grocery store to be integrated.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Instacart would be the "UberEats for Groceries", and already
| has issues with running out of time slots.
| rstupek wrote:
| Shipt is a grocery delivery service as well. Been using them
| for years
| Spivak wrote:
| You're talking about a pretty narrow window for someone who can
| afford an $8 delivery service but not an $18 delivery service
| on a grocery bill that's probably $100+. Like I get that this
| is essentially a fast-pass for grocery delivery but $18 for the
| time and labor for a real person to shop and deliver to me is a
| steal.
| kevstev wrote:
| This was likely in the works for months- I worked on a similar
| project while there, and lining up the integrations with
| external partners was time consuming across corporate
| boundaries. Actually a second read of the article shows that
| this was in pilot, and just being rolled out to more stores.
| The pandemic may have pushed the timelines up a bit, but the
| fact is that right now the supply/demand for delivery slots are
| out of whack because the demand far outstrips supply. If
| getting external services can help create more capacity at a
| charge, this is a win for everyone.
| taway555 wrote:
| It makes sense. Just like "economy" vs "first class" for travel.
| As a business, it needs to partition out the consumer buckets
| into various groups for profit maximization.
| Spivak wrote:
| "Pay less if it's not urgent" doesn't sound evil or anything.
| Like the pandemic has proved that delivery workers are a scarce
| resource, what do you want them to do, have a raffle?
| scollet wrote:
| It sounds like it's actually "pay more if it is urgent".
| downerending wrote:
| In a competitive market, it really will be "pay less if
| it's not urgent". In particular, if you're a peon flying
| coach, you _want_ some people flying first class, because
| they are effectively subsidizing your ticket. Bring on the
| rich!
| vkou wrote:
| There's three broad ways to determine distribution of scarce
| goods. You've missed one.
|
| In no particular order, those ways are:
|
| 1. Highest bidder.
|
| 2. Lottery.
|
| 3. Highest need.
|
| There is no intrinsic 'fairness' to either of those three
| priorities to distribution - what any person thinks is the
| fairest method _completely_ depends on their value system.
|
| However, regardless of your value system, and your opinion on
| which of these is the most fair, you can probably agree that
| for luxury goods, #1 is a reasonably accurate proxy for #3...
| And that for life-necessary staples, it is not.
|
| In the case of grocery delivery in the middle of a pandemic,
| people with pre-existing conditions, the elderly, and people
| living adjacent to those first two groups rank much higher on
| #3, than your run-of-the-mill 20-something-year-old. For the
| former, delivery is not a luxury good. For the latter, it is.
| renewiltord wrote:
| If they are truly life-necessary. But it is quite likely
| that the elderly and the pre-existing conditions folk will
| survive getting the bread tomorrow instead of in two hours.
|
| We already have a bypass mechanisms for the "I'll die if I
| don't get it in two hours". It's the emergency services
| system and it's there when your life is in danger and it's
| currently overprovisioned to ensure capacity.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _As a business, it needs to partition out the consumer buckets
| into various groups for profit maximization._
|
| When you're stuck with an empty cardboard roll in the middle of
| a three-flusher, you'll pay whatever price Wal-Mart asks.
| Zhenya wrote:
| Showers work...
| ngngngng wrote:
| I would love use a Walmart grocery delivery service, but they use
| a 9 mile radius around their stores to qualify for delivery and
| I'm 10 miles away from the nearest store.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Keep trying. I wasn't part of the Wal-Mart delivery area until
| last week. They seem to be expanding lately.
| freepor wrote:
| Also a way around price gouging laws. Many vendors cannot raise
| wages to attract more couriers since they are legally barred from
| raising prices. So they position this as a new service.
| nojito wrote:
| It's almost always better to use your local grocery store.
|
| You get your products quicker and have a greater selection as
| well.
| opencl wrote:
| My local grocery store has a much smaller selection than
| Walmart for seemingly everything other than meat and cheese.
| Not surprising when the store is 1/10 the size. But they were
| way ahead of the curve on grocery delivery, they've been doing
| it decades.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I assume you mean local as in not large corporations like
| Walmart or Meijer or Target or Jewel. Because those are local
| for people also.
|
| And that may be true most of the time, but not during this
| pandemic, if you want to stay home to protect yourself. None of
| those places have delivery, at least not that I know of, so I
| would have to go there to shop. I'm not even sure if they have
| Curbside pickup options.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm not even sure if they have Curbside pickup options._
|
| One of the local chains where I live just added curbside this
| week -- seven (eight? nine?) weeks into this.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It's almost always better to use your local grocery store._
|
| For a vast number (possibly a majority) of Americans, Walmart
| _is_ their local grocery store.
| makerofspoons wrote:
| As a customer I would rather they solve the problem that their
| pickers decrease the usability of their stores.
| downerending wrote:
| Ideally they'd pick in the middle of the night, to help with
| this. Personally I'd prefer it as a picker, though not everyone
| wants to work the night shift.
| sib wrote:
| And also not everyone wants to be woken up to receive their
| groceries at 2am after they've been picked in the middle of
| the night.
| lostapathy wrote:
| I had a good laugh yesterday at their store. They have finally
| put one-way stickers on the floor to indicate aisle directions.
| The only people I saw going the wrong way were wal-mart order
| pickers.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| Serious: Are those stickers any better?
|
| I haven't shopped at a store with those arrows, so I haven't
| seen how well they work, I can only guess...
|
| If someone is standing in the aisle comparing two products,
| are you going to wait for them so you don't pass them?
|
| If you only need one item and it's in an aisle towards the
| front of the store, are you going to follow the arrows so you
| go further towards the back of the store and down an aisle
| that you didn't need to go down?
|
| Are the arrows going to prevent you from walking through
| someone else's exhaled air?
|
| It seems more like something to appear doing good than
| actually doing good.
| doinathing wrote:
| They don't have to be followed in every possible instance,
| but they provide good guidance about what is expected when
| you see another person, and helps massively reduce the
| amount of situations where people pass each other going
| opposite directions. There's obviously no need to respect
| the arrows if you are grabbing something and going the
| "wrong way" doesn't put you in close contact with somebody
| else. By all means jump around lanes.
|
| And yes, wait for the person to move on, don't squeeze past
| them, that's the whole point.
|
| I have no data but it seems like something that would be
| helpful.
| downerending wrote:
| > Are the arrows going to prevent you from walking through
| someone else's exhaled air?
|
| In most aisles, it's almost impossible to maintain your
| distance from others if people are traveling in both
| directions, since you're frequently passing closely. If
| everyone makes a one-way "circuit" around the store, you
| can maintain pretty large distances.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Curbside pickup is about as safe and easier to scale.
|
| It's trivial to repurpose any employee as an order picker with 5
| minutes training.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| How is it about as safe? What if I don't have a car?
|
| Delivery seems MUCH safer -- I don't have to leave my home at
| all.
| nightfly wrote:
| There is no effective difference in the safety of delivery vs
| curb side pickup.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| For car users, that is.
| bluGill wrote:
| You don't interact with anyone. When we pull up and see the
| gut coming we hit the open trunk button and he loads
| everything in and we wave goodbye. Technically we should
| double check the order but I'm not getting that close to
| someone, I'll just stay in the driver's seat and trust them
| so far it has worked out. (onetime target messed up but one
| call and they made it right)
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Their original delivery was an absolute clusterfuck. Decided to
| try it one day. The checkout barely worked, the app had no time
| estimate and the rebranded Postmates subcontractor got 40% of
| the order incorrect.
|
| Walmart is making a big PR effort to rebrand as a tech company
| but it seems to be marketing driven.
|
| Edit: this was pre covid.
| kristopolous wrote:
| using clayton christensen, what's in the downmarket forcing them
| to retreat upmarket?
| petra wrote:
| They're not retreating. It's an additional service.
| octernion wrote:
| hah, not only are they copying Instacart's business model, they
| also copied the naming (https://www.instacart.com/store/express)
| freepor wrote:
| Delivering products quickly to your customer is not
| "Instacart's" business model.
| octernion wrote:
| what?
| teej wrote:
| _express_ isn 't a particularly novel brand term.
| Spivak wrote:
| _express_ to mean getting something faster. Unheard of!
| octernion wrote:
| i mean for sure, it's just the combination that's silly.
| dx87 wrote:
| Not sure how this is going to work, even the standard service is
| completely booked until next week at my local Walmart, unless
| they'll reserve some drivers for the 2-hour service.
| wincy wrote:
| Depends on the location. Walmart is everywhere. I live in a
| midsized city and the delay was only 8pm the next day when I
| placed an order at 6pm or so. A few weeks ago they'd just
| stopped it completely so it was nice to get groceries
| delivered.
| freepor wrote:
| They can spend more money to make the premium service work.
| Hire more delivery people etc.
| jdc wrote:
| It seems to me that they will use some of the extra money to
| pay more drivers.
| exhilaration wrote:
| You can't blame Walmart for that, that's case everywhere, from
| local supermarkets to Whole Foods delivery. All deliveries are
| out at least a week due to everyone avoiding going out because
| of covid.
| dx87 wrote:
| I'm not blaming them, I just legitimately don't see how they
| could offer another service when they're already booked solid
| and don't have any drivers to spare.
| wincy wrote:
| Walmart near me uses DoorDash to deliver orders. Maybe
| they're planning on ratcheting that up?
| bachmeier wrote:
| 26 million workers have lost their jobs in a little more
| than a month. The labor market might well be worse than the
| Great Depression. It doesn't seem to be a hard problem to
| solve.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but I have to imagine some
| people are reticent to start engaging in such a dangerous
| task for such a small amount of income. You're literally
| putting yourself and your immediate family in danger of
| catching a potentially serious illness for the
| opportunity to make, maybe $50 a day before expenses.
| [deleted]
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It is more along the lines of 'you say you offer a service,
| but you clearly do not have capacity to run it since it is
| completely booked'. Similar story in Chicago suburbs too.
| Your real option is to do it yourself.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| In the Bay Area Instacart has been the best option in my
| experience. A few weeks ago Amazon Fresh and most other
| services I checked were impossible to get, but on Instacart
| you could still get a spot 3 days out if you booked it before
| about noon. Now it seems better across the board, still
| spotty on other services but on Instacart you can reliably
| get any time slot you want the next day and even usually
| same-day.
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(page generated 2020-05-06 23:00 UTC)