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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Also Instacart and Google Express and Peapod.

My issues with Instacart is that not every shopper knows how to shop for produce.

I order avocados from instacart: They're all black on the inside when I cut into them.

I order specialty chips or cheeses? They're marked as "Item out of stock," but when I run to the same grocery store that they shopped at after my delivery it's right there in plain sight to me.

I order deli meat from Instacart? They ignore my comments about how I would like it to be sliced and deliver it to me shredded.

Outside of that? I love instacart -- as long as they're packaged goods (pick and ship) and they're not hot deli items or cold/frozen items (I've had drivers put yogurt in the same bag as a lot of frozen veggies and peas and stuff that shouldn't have been frozen was frozen.)

When I shop for groceries about half of my bill is produce. I also need groceries every week to keep produce in the house.

I don't trust anyone to pick out produce. So I have to go buy it. So it's not worth it to me to buy groceries online because I would only be buying non-produce.

I do however buy some things on Amazon that otherwise we might buy in the grocery store, like diapers.

I number of years back, I was on crutches with a broken foot and tried out Peapod for grocery delivery. It was "OK" but they were often out of things and items like produce were definitely hit or miss. At the time it was useful because I could drive and make my way through the store on crutches but couldn't easily do a full grocery shopping. Once I was back on my feet I stopped using them because, if I was going to the store anyway, having some of my groceries delivered wasn't much of a win.

(I'm willing to believe that Instacart + Whole Foods, for example, is a better overall experience--for a premium. But it's not available where I live.)

Yes. This is somewhat newsworthy as it's another example of Uber/Lyft's interest in becoming more broadly-based logistics companies. However, grocery delivery already exists. It's just remained something of a niche.

My speculation is that the reason is some combination of "I want to look at the produce," "I don't want to pay $10 for delivery," "I'm just not organized enough to sit down at my computer and input my order," and "I've always just gone to the grocery store."

Personally, I find Walmart to be a mediocre grocery store that I only go to because it's convenient. Given the other options that already exist for me, I would have pretty much zero interest in getting delivery from Walmart. I'd be using Peapod if I wanted it.

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