Amazon Is Quietly Exploring Unusual Grocery Store Format, NYT Report Says (nytimes.com) 83
The New York Times reports that Amazon is quietly exploring a new grocery store chain with a reimagined format for selling food (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). From the report: In early 2017, a memo circulated inside Amazon that imagined an ambitious new grocery chain. The document was written like a news release, a common practice for ideas being weighed inside the company, with the title "Grocery Shopping for Everyone." The new stores, the document envisioned, would have robust sections for produce, fresh food and prepared meals. Nonperishable products, like paper towels or canned beans, would be stored on a separate floor, away from customers. Shoppers could order those items with an app, and while they shopped for fresh food, the other products would be brought down in time for check out. There would also be an area to pick up groceries ordered online and to manage packages for delivery drivers. The faux news release, which has not previously been reported, cited a fictional grocery expert named Hal Apenyo, as in the chili pepper, declaring success in just six months. "The conversion from offline grocery shopping to mixed format shopping has been massive," the character was quoted as saying. A few months later, in June 2017, Amazon barged into the grocery business in a different way, by announcing a blockbuster deal to buy Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. The purchase catapulted Amazon near the top of the $700 billion grocery industry, and sank stocks of traditional grocers on fears that they would be outmaneuvered into oblivion. The memo and other big grocery proposals stopped circulating inside Amazon, as Whole Foods demanded everyone's attention.
But two years later, instead of Whole Foods being the answer to Amazon's grocery ambitions, it seems to have only whetted executives' appetites. The marriage has made clear the difficulties of selling fresh food inexpensively, either in a physical store or through delivery. Bananas are not the same as books. But the combination has also shown glimmers of success, particularly in delivery. And that has provided some fuel to Amazon executives pushing to add another food-selling option -- one built from the ground up that would change how people buy groceries. The company is now quietly exploring an ambitious new chain, probably separate from Whole Foods, that is not far removed from the one outlined in the old memo. It would be built for in-store shopping as well as pickup and delivery. As the discussions heated up this year, employees passed around a slightly updated version of the memo.
But two years later, instead of Whole Foods being the answer to Amazon's grocery ambitions, it seems to have only whetted executives' appetites. The marriage has made clear the difficulties of selling fresh food inexpensively, either in a physical store or through delivery. Bananas are not the same as books. But the combination has also shown glimmers of success, particularly in delivery. And that has provided some fuel to Amazon executives pushing to add another food-selling option -- one built from the ground up that would change how people buy groceries. The company is now quietly exploring an ambitious new chain, probably separate from Whole Foods, that is not far removed from the one outlined in the old memo. It would be built for in-store shopping as well as pickup and delivery. As the discussions heated up this year, employees passed around a slightly updated version of the memo.
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When you have a hammer everything is a nail. When you have an online retail presence...
Stop with the paywall nonsense (Score:1)
Seriously. Stop.
Smaller store footprint required that way. (Score:3)
They could put the paper, soap, pet food and so on on a second floor, and lower the basket down. Produce, meat, dairy, bread and doughnuts is the periphery of the store any way, at least here. But will the junk food/sugary drink companies allow their crap to be shoved out of the impulse buy zone?
And it still assumes everyone has a smartphone. Or at least everyone they want as a customer, which may well be true.
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No. Amazon sounds like it needs to learn why people are directed through the produce section in every store now, and why endcaps full of prepared foods are in the way of consumers headed toward the cereal and milk.
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well if amazon wants stores that sell less stuff then it's a perfect model.
hence the reason why they had to peddle it inside the company even with a faked up fake news story fantasy report.
If amazon is doing that, building up fake excitement feelies to push through internal decisions then they're gonna be fked.... because that just leads to decisions to be made on fake story feelings and not logic and facts.
Re:Smaller store footprint required that way. (Score:4, Interesting)
well if amazon wants stores that sell less stuff then it's a perfect model.
hence the reason why they had to peddle it inside the company even with a faked up fake news story fantasy report.
If amazon is doing that, building up fake excitement feelies to push through internal decisions then they're gonna be fked.... because that just leads to decisions to be made on fake story feelings and not logic and facts.
I'm not sure what their impetus is for thinking this is a good idea. In urban areas where space is at a premium I can see this being a lower cost model - street level square footage is at a premium, so move the items that are purchased by price or by brand alone to a cheaper square footage.
And I can see how with a little planning this could speed up my trip overall, but mostly by shifting the burden onto time spent at home picking out the bulk items.
And it will definitely cut down on the impulse shopping, and on the things that I forgot I needed until I walked by them on the shelf, so it feels like revenue per square foot will decrease.
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In urban areas where space is at a premium I can see this being a lower cost model - street level square footage is at a premium, so move the items that are purchased by price or by brand alone to a cheaper square footage.
When street footage rents at super-premium rates, why are you leasing out the upper levels as a cut-price warehouse --- and not to restaurants, professional offices, and other high-value tenants?
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That's a none problem if you put up a few kiosks or equip the shoping carts with a few tablets.
Re: Smaller store footprint required that way. (Score:2)
It would be a problem for my mother, but I admit that is an outlier.
Browsing (Score:2, Insightful)
It's far, far easier to pick a roll of paper towels from shelving where you can touch each brand and read their packaging compared to browsing a website and searching for the paper towels (why do most online photos suck? And they always miss that 1 angle you really want while nearly never showing top/bottom). Especially when searching you'll end up with a bunch of paper related items, towel related items, items that aren't in stock, and I'd bet money Amazon would insert ads for other products into those r
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Do you honestly read and compare paper towels and toilet paper on every trip to the store? Do you really change up your cereal to brand new products on a regular basis? Do you need 7 photos of toilet paper rolls because you've never wiped your arse? Surely you've done this process enough times that you have a handful of acceptable products (or a singular brand you are loyal to as are many consumers) to choose between and can just get the one on lowest unit price. As for when you do need to check labels a
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"but I really cannot think of a non-perishable item I buy from a grocery store that I need to see and touch in order to have a reasonable level of confidence that I'm getting what I want."
Really? You've never picked up a can or box of something and the weight seemed off and then you look closer and see that the whole box only has 6 cookies in it despite being big enough for 40? I mean sure, you can see the weight on the package... but I mostly just look at that when im comparing two brands of sugar or somet
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Really? You've never picked up a can or box of something and the weight seemed off and then you look closer and see that the whole box only has 6 cookies in it despite being big enough for 40?
Nope, never have and after reading about the idea I cannot understand why people would. Well, I understand from a "most people don't like math because it's hard" standpoint, but looking at ounces per bag is so much better. If you really are comparison shopping, why would you ever use a gut feel for how heavy the box is when they give you the exact measurements right on the box? I wonder if some food packagers intentionally make heavier cardboard boxes just for shoppers like you.
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First, I love math and practically minored in it.
"but looking at ounces per bag is so much better. If you really are comparison shopping"
Comparison shopping for what exactly?
An aero weighs less than an o henry. But I am not remotely worried about getting the densest chocolate bar on the shelf. I'll buy whatever im in the mood for. Same goes for lots of things. So no, i don't look at the weight on a chocolate bar, unless its out of line with what I expect by feel.
Likewise I know generic brand wheatie-ooos is
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Comparison shopping for what exactly?
In the context of this discussion, comparison shopping based on how much food is in the packaging. That was the only consideration you had listed in your earlier post (a box big enough for 40 cookies but with only 6 inside), so it was the only factor I mentioned in my post. There are certainly many other factors used when choosing products, such as taste, but you wouldn't be lifting the bag to determine weight if you are trying to figure out how the cookies will taste.
I certainly don't make most of my purch
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"In the context of this discussion, comparison shopping based on how much food is in the packaging. "
As I've said, I DON'T comparison shop cookies (for example) by how much food is in the packaging. It's pretty much entirely "other factors", so I don't even look at "oz in the bag" because I'm not comparing that number to anything, and I don't really have a pre-memorized/calculated value in my head of what I think it even should be for any given product at any given volume.
However, if I were to pick up a pa
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Why are you touching all those paper towels? Grab one, throw in the cart, get on with your damn day.
Most people do not take that kind of time to comparison shop. If they can just deliver me the damn towels, then that's fine, I do not have brand loyalty toward most household products, nor do I need to molest my items in order to determine that it's a paper towel.
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Why are you touching all those paper towels?
"Mr. Whipple . . . please don't squeeze the Charmin!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
When I buy a melon in a supermarket . . . I always pick it up, smell it and knock on it.
This article gave me the idea to do that with paper towels . . . just to see the reaction of the other shoppers, and generally confuse them.
Given the human nature of "monkey see, monkey do" . . . I wouldn't be surprised to see other shoppers replicating my bizarre behavior.
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You scan the item you want and add it to your cart. After you pay, a tote filled with your items comes rolling down a conveyor.
Obviously (Score:2)
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They are emboldened by the success of their Whole Foods acquisition to drive more supermarket innovation.
Don't know about the US stores but the Canadian Whole "pay check" Foods is not cutting the mustard even if they sell haute cuisine organic yellow sludge at a premium. The other chains are kicking their ass all over town. Hell even the smaller chains offer better costs on produce and staple items. Secondly their mise en place selection of prepared items sucks and sits there in the containers until it gets chucked because of the quality level and lack of organization of product lines.
They are not taking advan
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It seems that they are living some kind of organic orgasm in the dreams of Jeffrey
Whole foods has been this way since long before the Amazon acquisition. It caters to the moldy bread hipster crowd (because no preservatives or bleached flour).
Just clearly mark the aisle with the Bachelor Chow and get out of the way.
"Grocery Shopping for Everyone" indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
How is having the non-perishables in a grocery store in a non-customer-accessible warehouse space innovative in any way?
Why do I suddenly, according to them, need a smartphone just to do basic shopping?
This sounds more like a solution in search of a problem. They can keep it.
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I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the people who came up with this “innovative” idea don’t actually do their own grocery shopping.
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Why do I suddenly, according to them, need a smartphone just to do basic shopping?
What's the problem with needing a smartphone to shop in a particular grocery store? Almost everyone already has one when they are in-store anyways. Some of them actually use the phone for payment on the way out. Why not make use of this device everyone already has in their pocket in order to streamline the shopping process further? Amazon has already demonstrated this works in their cashier-less convenience stores. I you ever had a chance to try those stores, Id think you would agree that the experience is
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But... but... but... Apple or Google might be... and since it's theoretically possible, we will without any actual evidence assume that they are... lying about the security and privacy on their payment system! So now Tim Cook knows what flavor and brand of yogurt I like! Sundar Pichai knows that I prefer crunchy peanut butter over smooth! And AMAZON... dear lord in heaven, since I'm actually buying from them, Jeff Bezos DEFINITELY knows that, while I prefer my coconut water with pulp over without, I stil
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Distillation of what I originally said: "What's wrong with grocery stores the way they are now? Don't see a need to 'reinvent' them.."
It's as simple as that.
You and that other guy must just be trolling. *shrug*
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Actually, grocery stores used to be small shops where the customer would request items and an employee would get them from the back. If anything, this would be a throwback to those days (but with modern era improvements such as automating the system). Like many things, this sounds like a good idea in theory (quicker grocery shopping), but closer inspection reveals more and more potential p
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Actually it sounds like you have a lot of hate on for Amazon, and are just venting.
Amazon is clearly trying to think laterally in ways that will a) allow them to disrupt the current model of grocery shopping so b) they can make more $. That's it. It's not super complicated.
Whether they need to make more $, are the next Evil Empire, or whether Bezos has halitosis have nothing to do with the question.
I have nothing to do with Amazon; I don't particularly love them or hate them. I don't like what they're
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I don't like Amazon all that much because of their 'retail hegemony' but I don't sit there and seethe over them like you just did with literally 0.75 of a screenful of text about the subject, mmkay?
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Either you're illiterate or have a Memento-level of amnesia forgetting what you just read.
I was *praising* Amazon for potentially experimenting with a model of grocery delivery that might offer food-deserts a chance for decent grocery service?
How is praising someone "seething" about them?
Let's start with the basics (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to see an app that, given my shopping list in a big box store, would guide me to where each item on the list is located. For any given shopping list, I can grab about three-fourths of the items from memory because I shop for those items a lot: bread, milk, lunch meat, TP, etc. But where in hell is saffron? Capers? Vanilla extract? Why isn't the ravioli near the pasta?
Big box stores don't have employees, just vendors who stock their own sections as part of the service but don't know where anything else is.
As a bonus, such an app would be able to identify produce items to the self-checkout lanes without the need to look up codes.
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For the grocery store I go to most often, I print out a chart (on one sheet of paper) that has the things I usually buy sorted by aisle, and I circle what I intend to buy before leaving the house. One quick zig-zag through the aisles and I'm done shopping. Relatively low tech and extremely efficient. I would challenge anyone to beat me by futzing around with an app.
When I need something unusual not on the sheet, at the store I mark where I found it and add it to the chart when I get home. By now it's
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Locations could be pinpointed by having stores use those Bluetooth beacons. If the salad dressing section has to move this week to make room for seasonal stock, just move the beacon with it.
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Shopping for control freaks (Score:2)
They are OK with Amazon employees picking up their pampers and toilet paper, but the Bananas they put in the blender, they want to pick those themselves.
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Missed the point (Score:3)
The marriage has made clear the difficulties of selling fresh food inexpensively, either in a physical store or through delivery.
This analyst or columnist doesn't get it. Amazon didn't buy Whole Foods to sell groceries inexpensively. WF is derisively called "whole paycheck" with good reason. Even when things are on sale at WF, they are still at or above prices at traditional chains. The anticipated price cuts that were widely predicted in the media did not appear. Instead, Amazon got a new, vast and rich information stream about an affluent segment of American society for a marginally small concession in cost to consumers that is in line with the concession they give to their online shoppers for other goods.
If Amazon had been interested in selling groceries inexpensively, they'd have bought a different chain.
Hell no (Score:5, Insightful)
So instead of pushing my cart through the shop, I get to spend my time trying to order a long list of items through a crappy app presented on a screen the size of a postage stamp.
Requirements in order for this to be halfway painless:
- I want to place my order before I go to the shop
- I want to place my order from my computer, not my bloody phone
- Give me a list I can populate with regular purchases, and checkboxes for items I want this week
- Add a barcode scanner so I can go through my kitchen and scan 'I want this item again'
Time spent shopping is time wasted, so this needs to be less time-consuming than shopping is now.
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Time spend shopping is time wasted? Hardly. My wife and I enjoy shopping. We run into neighbors and friends and chat. We roam the aisles talking about what we want to make for dinner that week. To me, shopping is the ultimate experience of being an adult. When I was a kid, I ate whatever ended up in front of me. As an adult, I can put whatever appeals to me in my cart.
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Obviously this is a matter of opinion. I hate shopping.
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Literally everything on my Prime Pantry list is "currently unavailable". I'm not worried about an impending grocer-pocalypse.
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Not necessarily so.
While for fresh produce, I'm quite picky, for most of the rest, I can see a good app or order terminal being a good alternative.
Naturally, this would mean that all products have the full small print in the app, as I read very often the ingredient list when having to decide between similar products. Just a bad image and a price wouldn't be enough.
Sounds Familiar (Score:2)
Back in the 90's or so there was a store called "Best Products" or just "Best". Same idea, only with consumer goods, small electronics, and jewelry.
Minimal staff. You walked through a showroom and filled out a little paper form with what you wanted. You paid, and waited for your stuff to come on a conveyer belt from upstairs.
It was awful. No matter how little you bought, you'd be standing around waiting for half an hour. If you got multiple items, you had to wait while items painfully came out one at a ti
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According to the Freakonomics podcast [freakonomics.com], "the Aldi chain had two branches back in Germany, separately owned by two wealthy brothers named Albrecht. And that one of those branches also owned Trader Joe’s." And "Trader Joe’s outsells all other grocery stores per square foot ...." But their parking tends to be terrible.
Comparison of scale (Score:2)
"The purchase catapulted Amazon near the top of the $700 billion grocery industry ...." depending on the definition of "near". In 2017, Whole Foods was around ninth place in the US in total revenue [statista.com], about 1/7 as much as Kroger's. And yet the stock of other grocery-store chains took a big hit when Amazon bought Whole Foods, because ... apparently people think Amazon is magical or something.
Sounds like an expansion of the Amazon Go concept (Score:1)
Amazon Go stores (in SF, not sure about the other 3 cities) -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] -- are micro grocery stores without cashiers/tills. Scan your Amazon Go app barcode on the turnstile as you enter, pick things off the shelf, put it into your bag, and walk out through the turnstile.
As you're walking out you get an emailed summary of your shopping with how much time you spent shopping prominently featured with a feel good message accompanying it. This does two things at once: Emphasizes time spe