I tried Google Shopping Express (a similar idea) for a while and found that what really matters is how delivery works. I'm typically at work all day and I (like most San Franciscans?) don't have a doorman to receive deliveries.
These Amazon pages don't say much, but they show pictures of delivery trucks in front of Victorians like mine and a grocery bag on a welcome mat. If they left a bag full of food in my entryway like that it'd probably last 20 minutes before being stolen.
You have the option of "Attended Delivery" with Fresh, where they make sure to hand it over to you, or doorstep, where they leave it outside. In my current neighbourhood (South Bay) I have no trouble with unattended delivery and prefer not worrying about being home in time for my Google Shopping Express deliveries, but it would be totally different living in San Francisco.
I don't like unattended or scheduled delivery. This is what Vons does, in LA. However, we also have Yummy.com which provides delivery instantly. I've bought from them a few times, and they show up literally faster than a pizza does. We're talking 20-30 mins, in LA traffic. I don't even know how they do it. I can barely get my car out of the garage and to the market in that amount of time, let alone going up and down each aisle and going through checkout.
It's impressive service. I would do it all the time if the prices were lower and selection was better.
I've got a storage space with Extra Space Storage and if you leave a key with them they'll put your deliveries in your locker for you. It is really convenient! I've got just a small 5x5 room that costs me like $90/month... Along with deliveries I keep my winter gear, backpacking gear, and all sorts of other stuff that I don't really need sitting around me house.
Disclaimer: I don't work for these guys, have any investments, or anything to gain, I just like the service.
I assume you don't have some side yard that the delivery man can locate the goods out of sight?
I have had groceries stolen from my front porch before (usually that never happens), but never if I take the time to instruct the delivery person to leave it in the side yard (front part is closed but not locked). If you still feel the need to keep it locked, perhaps a simple (i.e., 4 digit) combo lock?
This is the main reason I roll my eyes whenever people say self-driving cars are the future of product delivery. After hundreds of years of history in mass delivery systems, we still haven't figured out how to interact with customers at a human level...no way in hell a robot is going to be better at it any time soon.
Isn't $299 a year a lot of money? Here in London the major supermarkets have time slots where they deliver for free (typically late in the evening), but even a prime time delivery, let's say, Sunday morning, costs no more than £5. The most upmarket online vendor, Ocado, offers one year of free deliveries, anytime, for £40.
Ok, there's also Amazon Prime thrown in, which is good; and I suppose that in the Bay Area the average delivery journey is longer than in London. Still, it seems a bit steep to me. Maybe it tries to place itself as a luxury service in the Amazon range?
Yea but if it's in the Bay Area it's news worthy innovation.
(e.g. I ordered food from NTUC, Carrefour (when they were still around) and Cold Storage super market websites for delivery in Singapore three, four years ago. They have done it even longer than that)
Interesting that they're opening with a different price model than Seattle's. $299/year and according to GeekWire their groceries are approximately 14% higher than in-store.
I could almost kind of justify it if the selection were better (especially since they also deliver from local businesses and offer Amazon.com items), but everything I tried to buy today was either completely unavailable (cat litter and chicken sausage), or only available next day (super fancy chicken sausage from some local meat market that I could just go and get myself today in 10 minutes), and I couldn't purchase an order under $35 even if I wanted to pay more on top of the still inflated prices. Amazon also offered up breastmilk storage bags when I tried searching for gallon milk. Iiiinnnnteresting.
I really wanted an alternative to Instacart and Google Shopping Express especially for the random Amazon items I'd want to throw in and a little more competition (really missing Trader Joes delivery), but I'm pretty disappointed so far. I was in Seattle this past weekend and I was super pumped to try it just to buy a water kettle for my hotel room and going all "I wish this were in SF!" but I can't actually find anything that I want to buy at home that would come faster/better than regular Prime shipping or competing services.
I ended up ordering from Instacart with almost everything I wanted instead because I was so frustrated (and I would walk to the local market but I'm sick). Easily would have been willing to migrate my grocery shopping to any service but they're all kind of shitty so :(
Double-parking quick delivery trucks remind me of nothing but the 2000 bubble. Here's one way too big for the parking spot about to block a fire hydrant in the Upper Haight just last night: http://imgur.com/61lAhjW
Interesting to see a new spin on this. Webvan was one of the biggest busts of the dot com era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan) -- interesting that Amazon resurrected it..
More interesting... They bought Kiva Systems for $775 million from Mick Mountz, a former Webvan employee who identified warehouse fulfillment as a prohibitive cost in delivering groceries.
Webvan was the best thing born of the 1st dotcom era, sadly it was unsustainable. Their timing was perfect for me - I was car-less in SF with kids and the local grocery store had recently gone under leaving me with a bus trip in order to grocery shop. Delivery to my 3rd floor walkup was awfully nice in comparison and well worth the approx. 10% markup. They had really nice crates too, I have 3 that I still use for various things.
I wonder if this is an experiment to bring all Amazon shipping in house? This would fit with their huge distribution system build out across the globe. In the meantime Amazon's relationship with UPS and FedEx is not disturbed.
What we need is another kind of mail box. A "AmazonBox", but takes deliveries from other companies as well. Big, refrigerated, with a public/private key.
Has anyone noticed that they give you gigantic bags for free? Our office (LA not SF) orders fresh all the time for basic food and they always give us enormous re-usable bags.
I'm trying to figure out, are they doing this on purpose (paper bags would be cheaper)? I'm assuming they are, hoping that you'll go shopping and use their cool bags and using this as a method of free advertising.
Here in the south bay I don't have InstaCart, but my local Safeway does deliver.
The experience isn't the best (someone has to be there and sign) but a) I have a nanny and b) I don't pay $299 or 14% more for the items.. in fact, I would pay less as I don't carry a loyalty card, but deliveries give you the loyalty price (presumably, they collect the same kind of info anyway).
[+] [-] evmar|12 years ago|reply
These Amazon pages don't say much, but they show pictures of delivery trucks in front of Victorians like mine and a grocery bag on a welcome mat. If they left a bag full of food in my entryway like that it'd probably last 20 minutes before being stolen.
[+] [-] mcpherrinm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aryastark|12 years ago|reply
It's impressive service. I would do it all the time if the prices were lower and selection was better.
[+] [-] williamcotton|12 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I don't work for these guys, have any investments, or anything to gain, I just like the service.
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
I have had groceries stolen from my front porch before (usually that never happens), but never if I take the time to instruct the delivery person to leave it in the side yard (front part is closed but not locked). If you still feel the need to keep it locked, perhaps a simple (i.e., 4 digit) combo lock?
[+] [-] saosebastiao|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylandrop|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] southpawgirl|12 years ago|reply
Ok, there's also Amazon Prime thrown in, which is good; and I suppose that in the Bay Area the average delivery journey is longer than in London. Still, it seems a bit steep to me. Maybe it tries to place itself as a luxury service in the Amazon range?
[+] [-] user1239321421|12 years ago|reply
My Tesco delivery is arriving in the next 20 minutes ... plus no annual charge over here.
[+] [-] ulfw|12 years ago|reply
(e.g. I ordered food from NTUC, Carrefour (when they were still around) and Cold Storage super market websites for delivery in Singapore three, four years ago. They have done it even longer than that)
[+] [-] bbosh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pws5068|12 years ago|reply
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/jeff-bezos-amazon-fresh-closer-...
[+] [-] bluedino|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magic5227|12 years ago|reply
They don't seem to be offering a very good argument for why the service is worth the cost IMO.
[+] [-] silencio|12 years ago|reply
I really wanted an alternative to Instacart and Google Shopping Express especially for the random Amazon items I'd want to throw in and a little more competition (really missing Trader Joes delivery), but I'm pretty disappointed so far. I was in Seattle this past weekend and I was super pumped to try it just to buy a water kettle for my hotel room and going all "I wish this were in SF!" but I can't actually find anything that I want to buy at home that would come faster/better than regular Prime shipping or competing services.
I ended up ordering from Instacart with almost everything I wanted instead because I was so frustrated (and I would walk to the local market but I'm sick). Easily would have been willing to migrate my grocery shopping to any service but they're all kind of shitty so :(
[+] [-] rhizome|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpinkston|12 years ago|reply
Just like every delivery truck ever...
[+] [-] hnriot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmamills|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] augustflanagan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlyang|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinsidoti|12 years ago|reply
http://www.kivasystems.com/about-us-the-kiva-approach/manage...
It's unclear if Amazon has actually started using Kiva, though. Does anyone know? That 60 minutes special didn't show them using it.
Edit: Changed from "the prohibitive cost" to "a prohibitive cost."
[+] [-] noise|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhewes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|12 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...
[+] [-] thefallsman|12 years ago|reply
I'm trying to figure out, are they doing this on purpose (paper bags would be cheaper)? I'm assuming they are, hoping that you'll go shopping and use their cool bags and using this as a method of free advertising.
[+] [-] machinagod|12 years ago|reply
The packs are also cold-keeping, so I wonder if that makes the paper-bag alternative moot.
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
The experience isn't the best (someone has to be there and sign) but a) I have a nanny and b) I don't pay $299 or 14% more for the items.. in fact, I would pay less as I don't carry a loyalty card, but deliveries give you the loyalty price (presumably, they collect the same kind of info anyway).
[+] [-] thetrb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msoad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petesid|12 years ago|reply
http://petersid.com/why-you-shouldnt-use-amazon-fresh/
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