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Comment by db1 | Hacker News Reader

I cannot foresee how this will play out in the long term for the end consumer. In the short term, consumers get a whole lot of convenience and lower prices. What happens after a large chunk of other stores have gone out of business? How would any new player even approach entering the market? It almost seems impossible unless Amazon systematically screws up and leaves a gap for someone to exploit.

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Google Express is an interesting counter to this - the ease of online ordering while using the local stores as local inventory holders. It mostly works (though it doesn't do fresh groceries where I am). I comparison shop amazon vs. whatever's on express, and it's pretty common to find what I want more cheaply via a local vendor, particularly Costco.

I really, really hope this model makes it possible for local shops to coexist with Amazon for those of us weird enough to want to shop online. (I say that because it's worth remembering that nobody posting here is "normal" from the perspective of consumer online habits.) I can't imagine local places are going to out-compete Amazon when it comes to high $/lb or $/cm^3 items where the amortized cost of shipping is low, or cases where it's something with very slowly-moving inventory, but shipping gallon jugs of vinegar is going to have a very hard time competing against Costco.

(oblig. disclosure: Google's paying my salary this year but this comment has nothing to do with me hacking Tensorflow.)

First : According to research - "Shoppers see value and are willing to pay for the convenience of these services. A MAJORITY of shoppers consider $6 to $10 a reasonable fee for delivery to their homes, and $3 to $5 for in-vehicle or in-store pickups."

And i would add - many would probably be willing to pay something between those numbers for delivery to a fast pickup point on their way from work.

So what if we start talking about parcel lockers for food(as there are in some places), which increase last mile delivery productivity 10x according to some ? And if we designed robotic parcel lockers, built to height, so we could optimize land productivity ? And fully/mostly robotic order fulfillment ? And once eCommerce takes some grocery share, grocery prices will rise somewhat. And of course, online will have a larger selection(which tends to impact prices,by competition).

It's not clear Costco will win.

I believe they will compete more with Aldi and not regular grocery stores that offer everything.

As long as grocery stores still offer fresh fruit, meat, deli, florist etc...I will go there. If I need a box of cereal I will spend the extra $.50 for the convenience.

But on a day I just need basic necesities, Aldi or Amazon here I come!

It seems like Amazon will be in a better position to offer fresh products in the long term than a grocery store.

Let's call it AmazonFresh

I can already imagine seeing it on my Kindle:

> Most customers who bought this book were eating while reading:

> - Fresh Honeycrisp Apple, $0.99 (instant drone delivery under 15 minutes, free for Amazon Prime customers)

I can't imagine ordering fresh produce without first seeing or touching it. Boxed goods like cereal is OK to order online, but I want to pick out the unbruised, best pieces of fruit of veg.

I actually use amazon fresh's delivery service and I can tell you they don't send bruised fruit/vegetables. FreshDirect here on the East coast has long solved this problem as well. They move merchandise so quickly that it never gets a chance to bruise. It's always guaranteed freshness. I will say that sometimes you won't get the sweetest piece of fruit though.

Meal-in-a-box outfits like Blue Apron seem to have mostly solved this problem. Of the 3 or 4 test orders I received from 2 such services, the produce was generally in excellent condition.

I guess a new player could offer something novel? Consumers will go for novel food choices over established ones, even if the new one is more expensive or less convenient.

But then what if Amazon systematically clones every new success? Maybe everything will be subsumed into Amazon.

Maybe traditional grocery stores could leverage their existing supply chain and adapt their brick+mortar retail facilities to become Last Mile service partners with Amazon.

Not so sure about lower prices... even before stores would theoretically go out of business...

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