Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

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In 1992, I worked in a precast/prestressed concrete plant. One of the projects was a 500' fire wall for a Walmart distribution center near Brooksville, Florida. One side was dry goods, the other side was cold goods. There was 1000 linear feat of wall because it was double panel (as fire walls often are). That cold/perishable side was up and running 25 years ago. Before Walmart was even "in the grocery business". Of course before Amazon...Bezos hadn't even left Wall Street.

The hype about Amazon and Whole Foods ignores the real logistical challenge of the grocery business at scale. Catching up with Walmart means delivering fresh food everywhere 24 hours a day, not just "in select markets during business hours." I'd put it this way, Walmart's infrastructure can move upscale in the grocery market more easily than Amazon/WF's infrastructure can scale up for grocery sales. A significant amount of Amazon's existing inventory sits as stock in a warehouse. Amazon is not nearly as driven by just in time contracts with suppliers as Walmart.

>Walmart's infrastructure can move upscale in the grocery market more easily than Amazon/WF's infrastructure can scale up for grocery sales.

Can Walmart move their brand upscale? That may be more of a challenge than infrastructure.

As purchase trends continue to shift, Walmart needs to effectively service low-income customers in-store and middle- and high-income customers online (and perhaps occasionally in-store for pickups). Their core brand needs to represent different things to different customer segments. Not easy to do, but I'm glad they are trying.

Even Amazon seems to be struggling with higher-end items now. I would never purchase a watch or anything else of value from Amazon anymore, but I'm pretty paranoid about counterfeit goods

Yeah, I definitely limit my Amazon shopping to inexpensive goods. TVs, expensive electronics, computer components, etc are all purchased elsewhere.

Counterfeit TVs? Surely it's mostly SD cards and easily -counterfeited things.

What makes a TV harder to counterfeit than an SD card? Buy a cheap panel, slap it together with subquality work, apply the brand name, sell sell sell. Or even simply rebrand.

Number of parts?

Whether it is hard or not, have you seen instances of it being done? On Amazon or elsewhere?

Walmart carries organic produce, free range eggs, Dave's Power Seed, hormone free milk and whatnot. A shopper can put them in the same cart as their eighty cent Great Value Mac and Cheese and a box of Strawberry Pop Tarts. And Walmart will gladly take their money without judgment.

Walmart's business wasn't built on selling to low income people. It is built on selling to everyone in places like Fort Stockton, Texas. The person renting a dilapidated trailer and the rancher with 150,000 acres of cattle and oil leases both shop there because there aren't a lot of other practical options short of driving to El Paso. Not saying that there's not a significant difference in branding, but a lot of that difference is that Whole Foods brand images for people who are offended by Pop Tarts and HFCS on "their" store's shelves. On the other hand, Walmart's potential customer base is anyone who is not offended by shopping at Walmart for the vastest majority of grocery purchases.

> And Walmart will gladly take their money without judgment.

But the mid to higher end doesn't give away their money without judgment; that's the problem.

> But the mid to higher end doesn't give away their money without judgment; that's the problem.

My platinum Amex works at Walmart just like everyone else's credit card, and with curbside pickup, I don't even have to go in. I can pull up, check in with the kids still in the car, and have the car loaded and be on my way in 5 minutes.

I don't shop Whole Foods because a) the value isn't there ("Whole Paycheck", and I don't have nor want Prime to get a discount) and b) Walmart is a slightly less evil sweatshop than Amazon (IMHO).

Sidenote: If anyone from Walmart Labs is reading this, you've really up'd your mobile (iOS) game. Kudos.

A lot of people are judgemental about it though. The idea that everyone there has cooties is pretty deeply entrenched.

As far as Whole Foods goes, it has some specialty stuff you can't get elsewhere easily, but as a main grocery store the selection is small and the prices are high.

Try Trader Joe’s for those speciality items. I find them to have quite an eclectic selection and treat their workers well.

On the subject of the acceptance of Walmart as the county store for all income and wealth levels, I agree it’ll take more time for normalization.

Only one of these stores is near my house.

Applogies for my assumption.

No big deal. I think you're right that they scratch about the same itch.

Think about paying more and not shopping at Walmart, if you want to stand on principle. Walmart is 'evil.' They don't pay their employees a living wage, so the tax payers have to pick up the difference.[0]

And, although he is long gone, Sam Walton was notorious for opposing the minimum wage. It's unclear to what extent that attitude persists.

[0] Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

[1] Sam Walton and Minimum Wage https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wage-and-means/

I just finished the Sam Walton biography. I'm not sure of the author off hand (in case there was more than one) but you are spot on. Walmart started off in small towns where other stores couldn't justify a presence. It was a great day when a Walmart came to your town. The current evil mom-and-pop killing mega-corp is a more recent rhetoric.

I read it as part of my business degree. It's a great book, and a fascinating story: "Sam Walton: Made In America" by Sam Walton and John Huey.

Amazon could combine efficiencies in distribution scale with a marketplace for producers.

Wallmart beats the suppliers down on price and quality, and only supplies their own stores. Amazon could supply many chain stores, profiting on the distribution/supply management, and also create a marketplace where suppliers sell to the chain stores, and profiting again on organizing the market.

If I'm not mistaken, many food companies have their own logistics. This is probably more efficient than adding Amazon. And I'm sure food companies won't be happy for Amazon to become part of their business unless it's necessary(I.e. Access to Amazon users).

Depends on the food company; and I'd say more of them outsource it than don't.

McDonald's, frequently considered to run one of the best supply chains in the world, outsources nearly all of their logistics to "white label" food distributors like those owned by Reyes Holdings [1][2], who then dispatch food in McDonalds's-branded trailers, but handle every aspect of distribution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reyes_Holdings [2] http://martinbrower.com/our-story.html

Before I worked in precast I did a lot of temp industrial work. One of those assignments back in the late 1980's was in a Martin Brower warehouse for all the McDonald's in Florida plus the one in Guantanamo. Thirty years ago, they were incredibly organized and efficient. A lot of that efficiency came from 19th century technology: a rail spur where boxcars of french fries and pickles pulled up. Since they're still in business, I imagine that time has made them Moore's Law more efficient.

TIL there is a McDonalds in Guantanamo.

One of the things that I noticed in the grocery section of Walmart is that they have a smaller quantity of items on the shelf that will expire more quickly, such as ground beef. My guess is they know the sell rate of those items in that store, and are able to better predict how many will be sold in the next few days, to minimize spoilage.

Not sure WF/Amazon has that skill, especially since Whole Food's margins have allowed for them to have a greater spoilage rate, while still having attractive displays of produce/meat.

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