I know doing grocery delivery might not be profitable, but why can’t you just order what you want online and then pick it up at the service desk? You can do this for any other product imaginable. Would it really be that much harder to reserve a case of soda or carton of eggs than to reserve a TV or a car part?
What grocery store are you talking about? ShopRite has had that service for at least two years now.
The store needs extra staff to actually pull the item(s), space to stage the orders.
I drove for a courier service at the time Safeway tried that (pre-internet, it was phone orders).
Major PITA for all involved including most of the customers. Didn’t last long.
Now we know who hasn’t been keeping up with the news.
Hannaford and Shaw’s. Neither one does this.
Differences between groceries and “any other product imaginable”:
- People normally don’t buy just one or two items at a time from a grocery store; they often buy a whole cartful.
- Grocery stores typically have low profit margins.
- Much of what is sold at grocery stores is perishable, and needs to be frozen or refrigerated or protected from squashing or bruising.
Refrigeration.
Also, it takes a lot more staff time to have someone go round doing someone’s weekly shop that just selecting a TV from the warehouse.
Some places (here in the UK, at least) offer this service, presumably if they have fridge capacity and staffing for it.
I used to work at Shaws’ headquarters and we looked into providing such services. There isn’t much market for it at all. It makes no sense to me personally either. If I am going to the supermarket, I want to be able to pick out my own items, especially produce and meat, and I never have a complete list of even the non-perishable things that I find while I am there either. Picking out my own groceries has never been the sticking point.
There is some market for online ordering and home delivery of groceries and it is offered in many large cities. Stop & Shop has their Peapod service for example (they offer some pickup points as well). I don’t know anyone that uses it personally and I don’t believe it is that successful but they keep trying to push it with rather large discount coupons and free delivery.
Oddly enough, your idea is much more retro than progressive. Grocery stores and general stores used to work the way that you describe until the early 20th century. Customers would hand their list to a clerk who would pick everything from the stockrooms and then bring it to the front for checkout. Piggly Wiggly’s big innovation in the supermarket industry was to set up their stores so that customers could shop for themselves without a predefined list.
Amazon will pack and ship your grocery orders to your residence. At least in southern California.
Much of what people buy at the grocery store are impulse purchases. That is why they put the high demand perishables like bread, eggs and milk in the back of the store, so you have to walk past all the impulse purchases to get to them. I’m assuming that is partly why . If people place online orders and pick them up in the front of the store, then impulse purchases decline.
I also think its insufficient refrigeration space available, given the potential LARGE delay between order and pickup because customers are nightmares. every square metre of Supermarket floor space is potential $$$ for their walk in retail trade.
With the pick and deliver, a staff member goes around with a crate, picks your whole order, then typically plops straight into the refrig truck at the dock. Then the truck takes on his 10-50 orders and trundles off. same warm or cold exposure as you’d have carting it home yourself.
In Australia, they tried to do a similar thing to what OP suggested by building temporary cool rooms at service stations the supermarket chains owned - i guess they had the land available and better opening hours for customer convenience. Anyway it just sort of died quietly. I also don’t want to go to a dirty servo to pick up my produce either ha-ha
In the 30s the owners of two grocery stores a few miles away drove a route of customers, taking orders on Tuesday, and Thursday they would deliver it. The stores were far enough away that I don’t remember actually going to them, so this was a way of increasing their customer base.
I frequently wonder how much pay at the pump costs filling stations. Having to go into the store and pay for your fuel sure sold a lot of insanely high margin items from the cash register. Now they’re trying to make a living off that nickel a gallon margin on gasoline. It must make more than it costs, because they’d quit accepting the cards at the pump otherwise, but they probably make more profit selling a dime’s worth of potato chips for $1.89 than on $40.00 worth of gas.
Here in New England the Stop and Shop chain offers a service "Peapod’ - order on the phone or on internet and they deliver to your home. Presumably for additional cost. Great for people who can’t get out.
You can get a significant number of non-perishable groceries from Amazon, walmart.com and jet.com
Online grocery has really been spreading rapidly in the last year and I expect it will be universally available in urban areas in a year or two. Sometimes it’s a supermarket chain (like a regional chain like HyVee); sometimes it’s a delivery service like Instacart. Walmart is experimenting; Amazon Fresh is in a few markets.
Ooo! Ooo! Hannaford does:
I’m sure it’ll roll out to more stores but right now it’s in:
Maine
North Windham
Yarmouth
Massachusetts
Leominster
New Hampshire
Concord
Dover Fields
Exeter
Goffstown
Manchester
Nashua
New York
Ballston Spa
Clifton Park
Colonie
Guilderland
Niskayuna
Saratoga
Supermarkets in the UK have been doing home delivery for a long time. Recently my local Sainsbury’s has started a sort of drive-thru pickup service. They just park one of the refrigerated delivery vans in the car park and you get your order from there.
My local Tescos now has a dedicated pick up building in the car park. You have to reserve a time slot. I’ve used it once. The building is split into refrigerated and non refrigerated sides. When I turned up there was a single employee in charge. My groceries were in plastic boxes on racks and were brought out to me.
I found it much more of a faff than just having the groceries delivered as they had to be taken from the boxes and put in the boot of the car then unloaded back at home. It was slow. One the other hand there were open time slots for no cost for the following day, which is why I chose it. I think this kind of service is going to be very popular round Christmas time when they open up the time slots for delivery weeks in advance and they all get taken in hours.
You can pick up orders from FreshDirect. Most of their business is delivery, but if you want to avoid the delivery charge you can get it yourself.
Sams Club does this as well.