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Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

> Markets also cut costs by eschewing extra technology and certain aesthetic choices—the Journal points out that shelves “are typically made of plywood and lined with newsprint,” prices are scrawled on cardboard instead of printed on stickers, and credit cards are not always accepted.

Some people don't want to buy food with cardboard signs and cash.

Hell, I've heard California even has people who are fans of convenience so much they will pay for other people to do the grocery shopping.

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I pay a service to do my grocery shopping for me. It's a bit of a markup, but I highly value my personal time, don't own a vehicle and have an extreme dislike of grocery stores. There's a great market for such services (gig economy).

Chicago Resident.

Exactly. I was being facetious, but the point is that rock-bottom prices aren't everything.

yep same. Brooklyn here. I order grocery delivery from a local independent grocer via an app once a week or so. I value my time and don't want to spend it standing it line at a grocery store.

I met people in London who also pay people to grocery shop for them. For most staples I'm pretty sure this could probably be cheaper then having a grocery store in SF, they could have a warehouse in Fremont.

We could call it "HomeGrocer" or maybe that's too specific - how about "Webvan"?

(I agree though, I think this is something that is going to happen - just have to find the right business model at the right time.)

In the UK and Ireland the big supermarket chains do deliveries for cheap (7.50 euro per month from Tesco, for instance, or a few euro per shot if you pay as you go). The catch is that it is generally believed that, at least outside certain high-density urban areas, they're doing this at a loss; it may not be sustainable.

Tesco have been doing online ordering since 1997, so it seems unlikely is unsustainable.

Doesn't that exist in the form of primenow, doordash, seamless, grubhub, instacart, uber eats, [...]?

From what I remember I've seen quite a few "night time delivery only, no pickup allowed" grocery "restaurants" on those services

Eh? I don't have a car and do _all_ of my shopping via amazon now and instacart (direct from Whole Foods). I get deliveries 3-4 times per week.

Kbutler is joking. HomeGrocer and WebVan were early companies that attempted to sell groceries on the Internet. They both collapsed in the dot-com crash.

I am not sure why they failed but more recent attempts seem to be succeeding. My two current theories are: 1. They were ahead of their time. There weren't enough people shopping on the Internet to sustain them back then. 2. They were killed by structural obstacles that may also kill the new versions.

Something about how you can get Fresh food Directly from the warehouse.

> Some people don't want to buy food with cardboard signs and cash.

Gee, I wonder why do you have to pay with cash....that might be one contributing factor why prices can't be matched by mainstream retailers.

Immigrants in general, but especially Asian ones, do not want to pay the fees required to accept cards.

Most people in their communities are fine with it.

In my experience they often seem averse to typing sales into a cash register, even when they have one right in from of them....or the ole "type the price in and hit "cash" " trick.

Must be some sort of a superstition.

My grandfather ran a store that my uncle took over. No pennies, no tax. Everything was priced as marked. End of the day, count up the register and write it in the log. end of the month calculate how much came in, multiply by sales tax, and send a check off to the state.

Maybe they're cheating. IMHO, most of that cash register discipline is because the owner (or his immediate family) isn't running the register.

Im sure you can get away with not paying taxes for a while, but if you're going to have a generational store, you've got to be honest.

Technical controls are cool and all. When you can just look over and see you need more cans of soup, when you implicitly trust your employees, and you're not looking to make a quick buck and run away, they're just a lot of work for not much value. Scaling has a cost.

In South America, tax evasion has evolved so much that there are software packages with built-in "under the table" accounting, and dual accounting (one for the state and the real one).

Paying actual taxes is a fast way to bankruptcy here :( , the above-board companies look for tax loops, smaller ones make do with dual-accounting and understating income.

Government figured out that income tax is the most difficult to fake and heavily hammers employees :(

Immigrants in Europe accept cards in their shops, but then the EU limits the maximum charge to 5 cents for a debit card.

Cash also has a cost, which can often be greater than 5 cents.

I don't get the aversion to cash. I prefer that my bank and credit card company not know literally everything I buy, no matter how mundane or innocuous.

It's nice to buy a pack of cigarettes with cash and not worry that my health insurance company is going to somehow find out.

Its a conditioning thing, if thats how you had always bought vegetables it wouldn't be odd to you at all.

I may be showing my roots here, but I've never bought a cantaloupe off the back of a beat up farm truck that wasn't delicious.

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