Why do some groceries deliver, but not do store pickup?

[SciFiSam]

@RTFirefly

That’s clearly not what’s happening around here. You can get delivery in the same zip code as the store. But a few miles away, you can’t.

If delivery was being run out of a warehouse in the boonies, then the delivery range would have to be large for it to be worth doing at all, because probably not that many of your customers live near your warehouse. And the situation I described in the OP wouldn’t be happening.OK, so you have an area in the back of the store (by the loading dock, probably) where employees set the delivery orders while they’re waiting for the next delivery car or truck to pick them up and deliver them. ISTM that pick-up orders could sit there too, and when the customer comes in, an employee goes to the back of the store, finds the right order, and brings it to the front. The real issue would be whether the pickup orders would add modestly to the use of that space, or whether the pickup orders would overwhelm it.

The deliveries here are by postcode too, but they’re still from a warehouse. The warehouse isn’t out in the boonies in this case, but even if it was it would want to have a specific range to deliver goods in, because then they deliver to multiple people in one trip (and also possibly deliver extra stock to the store).

[MandaJo]

@RTFirefly

OK, so you have an area in the back of the store (by the loading dock, probably) where employees set the delivery orders while they’re waiting for the next delivery car or truck to pick them up and deliver them. ISTM that pick-up orders could sit there too, and when the customer comes in, an employee goes to the back of the store, finds the right order, and brings it to the front. The real issue would be whether the pickup orders would add modestly to the use of that space, or whether the pickup orders would overwhelm it.

How long do you let refrigerated and frozen goods before you throw them out? If you are doing delivery, you don’t pull them until the car is ready to go. What do you do if they never show? How quickly do you redistribute everything? How much business will you lose when people who show up an hour late are pissed because their stuff isn’t there and they have to pay for the refrigerated goods you had to throw out?

[iamthewalrus_3]

A lot of people are focusing on the difficulties and additional costs of pickup, but it might have more to do with the competition.

If you offer delivery, you can compete with Amazon. If you don’t, you’re effectively ceding all those customers who either aren’t willing to come to the store, or are willing to pay a bit more to have things done for them. In addition, Amazon has proved that there’s a market there, and people are primed to look for delivery services.

Customers who want delivery tend to value their time higher, too, so they’re more willing to pay a premium. Those are important customers to keep.

But since there isn’t (much of) a “pick up” option for Amazon (I know there is actually, but it’s not as well known), then no one has proved that’s a viable business, and customers don’t know about it.

If you’re a low-margin business like a grocery store, a new shopping model that most people don’t know about is a risky proposition. You have to spend energy and money educating customers that it’s even an option since they’re not that primed to look for it.

Maybe it’s actually a good business model, but it’s risky to try. There are a lot of things that seem really obvious in retrospect that nonetheless took many years for someone to actually try seriously.

[Serenata67]

In my city, Meijer has grocery delivery, but it’s done through a third party company called Shipt. Shipt recruits the shoppers, they manage the digital infrastructure for ordering, payment, etc. All Meijer has to do is accommodate them, and work out product pricing. So the “manpower” is handled by another company that charges more for the service.

There are times it’s totally worth that cost (when your newborn is sleeping and you need ingredients for dinner, when you’re out of some essentials, but don’t have time to pick them up between work and getting the kids and getting dinner on the table, etc.). And honestly, I would rather have groceries delivered to me than do a pick up order… unless they did carside delivery.

I think being 15 minutes away and being “too far” is kind of ridiculous. I’m about 10-15 minutes away from Meijer (depending on traffic and the lights), and I know they deliver to people further away from me. I’d look into seeing if your store could expand their delivery radius.

[Marvin_the_Martian]

I’d vote for storage logistics and no-shows. One of my local groceries tried a system where you would enter your deli order via a kiosk, then get a page when it was ready for pickup. They stopped it after a few months. Why? Too many people forgetting/blowing off their order, so they were stuck with a lot of sliced and packaged meat and cheese. And these were customers who were already in the store when they made the order, not ordering from off-site.

[gnoitall]

@TruCelt

Delivery services are usually a function of the distribution warehouse, not the local retailer.

I don’t know about “usually”. You might want to back that up with at least one concrete example.

My concrete counter-example is that all my local supermarkets with delivery have the delivery stock picked off the actual store shelves by an employee functioning as a “personal shopper” working off the order shopping list. The only “warehouse” needed is to bag the goods out of the shopping cart and put them into delivery crates to be loaded into the van.

[casdave]

Are you sure you are not talking about ‘dark store’ shopping?

Online grocery and supermarket shopping has become a very specific industry.

In short the place that picks your order and the place that sells goods to attending customers (i.e a shop) may be completely different places - even though they appear to be operated by the same organisation.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150804-shop-but-dont-enter-the-strange-world-of-dark-stores

https://www.assigns.co.uk/what-is-a-dark-store-in-retail/

[Flyer]

@epbrown01

I’m betting the problem is the same as why many restaurants don’t do reservations anymore- no shows. With delivery, the person will typically be home to get the items - after all, often the reason they’re getting delivery is they don’t want to go anywhere. With store pick-up, people likely blow them off if anything - no matter how trivial - comes up, as the store is the one inconvenienced, not them.

@Broomstick

I can’t figure it out either, but I do know my store has tried grocery pick up several times in multiple states and it just doesn’t seem to be cost-effective.

One problem is late arrivals - the store would need to keep cold items cold and hot items hot until the buyer arrives. How long to hold an order before reshelving it?

@ZipperJJ

My store just implemented pickup (not delivery) and they literally rearranged the entire store in order to do it.

They took a little 30x30 enclave at the front of the store that was the soap/shampoo/cosmetics section and put the pickup section there. Lucky for them that section used to be the video rental section so there is a separate door. They had to outfit the space with coolers and freezers and shelves on which to store the pickup bins. And of course move all the inventory that had been there to other places in the store (most notably they lost a bunch of floor space for beer).

It was a big undertaking. And like I said they luckily had the curbside door already. If you don’t have the space and don’t have the door, you really can’t do pickup. Like someone else said, the logistics of delivery are different - you can just pack stuff up and take it out the back door.

And yet Walmart is doing just fine with their store pickup program for groceries. And they didn’t rearrange their stores to do it, either.

[Ludovic]

Unlike grocery stores, many if not most already had a large customer service area with space for layaway. You can double the use of this for online purchases since they have the same form factor.