Amazon Tests a Home-Delivery Service For Groceries 176
destinyland writes "Amazon.com is quietly trying to resurrect the failed business models of WebVan and HomeGrocer — two dotcoms which had offered home delivery of fresh groceries — with a new service called Amazon Fresh. Last week at a shareholder's meeting, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos fielded questions about the current tests being conducted in Seattle. Bezos admitted Amazon is 'tinkering' with the economics of it, adding that 'we continue to think about that...We like the idea of it, but we have a high bar of what we expect in terms of the business economics for something like Amazon Fresh in terms of profitability and return on invested capital.' No further details were forthcoming, but Bezos still acknowledged that 'we continue to think about that.'"
Re:UFCW get off your ass (Score:1, Insightful)
why? so we can subsidize the pension of some high school dropout box-monkey making 26$ an hour while I work my ass off?
fuck unions
Re:It can succeed -- but it's a local business (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. FreshDirect probably benefits from certain unique features of the New York City metro area -- not only the incredible density of the population, but the relatively low percentage of car ownership.
If my wife and I owned a car, we might go to the supermarket ourselves more regularly. As it is, we shop at various local mom-and-pop groceries ("bodegas" in NYC parlance) and a CVS drugstore that we can walk to in our Brooklyn neighborhood, and supplement that with FreshDirect orders every 2-3 weeks.
We have a couple of supermarkets within a 15-minute walk, but it's much easier to order the supermarket-type stuff for delivery.
There are very few places in the US with comparably low rates of car ownership. Even in other dense cities, it's much more common for people to own at least 1 car. Most of our friends in NYC (well-educated professional and creative types) are carless. Walking, public transit, and occasional cab use are more than adequate, and IMO, much preferable.