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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

Smart move. Whole Foods has a limited appeal. It's not just price - sometimes people want to buy Cheetos or pizza rolls that don't taste like cardboard.

Slightly related thought: Why not design a store which allows instant fulfillment from a wide selection of goods while taking up less ground level space? I could see an Amazon/Walmart/etc store where you reserve the shelf space for presentation, but the goods are actually stored on higher floors and delivered to the customer upon checkout? Real-estate is a premium in many markets and probably keeps out super-center style stores. If you could build up, without having to extend retail niceties to all floors, you might make the costs work.

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Yes, I imagine a store in which you just walk around and scan QR codes on your phone and your bagged groceries are waiting for you when you walk out (all paid for on the app, too, so no checkout).

Until people put things in their bag/cart that they didn't scan the code for, and you're not going to RFID tag an entire grocery store inventory that already has razor thin margins.

Supposedly Amazon's machine-vision store is solving this though.

I don't think the parent comment means people putting things in the bag. They just walk with phone, scan the items they want to buy which get added to bag automatically by robot/someone else and customer just walks to the counter at the end to pick up their bag.

I see, my bad. Still, why even walk around empty aisles full of food pictures then?

It seems like a strange UI for something that could just happen in the app before you even get to the store. Seems like a waste of space too since everything will be itemized and stored in the back on shelves as well.

I understand that user behavior doesn't turn on a dime but Amazon customers are already used to ordering online.

I'm saying have items for display to allow for browsing. You don't need shelf space for 24 boxes of cereal - you keep them upstairs. The aisles can be narrower(no carts, shallower shelves) and you still have the experience of browsing and getting people to make impulse decisions. It's like a hybrid between browsing Amazon and being in a real store.

That's a good plan.

But since the store size is 35000 sq.ft., they'll surely do something beyond that. But what ?

And they're going to build a lot of these stores, fast. They must. Or else, Walmart.

EDIT: Why so much space?

Sometimes you need stuff from the grocery today. Other times you can order online. Sometimes you need both.

This stores will serve both roles.

I'm really struggling to imagine a world in which this is preferable. Produce is the obvious example but it's much easier to consider what all I'm purchasing and what else I need to get when I can just look in my cart at what I already have.

I mean the checkout experience might be a little better but there are so many additional variables that come into play. Like are things going to be bagged well? I walk to the grocery store so it's important to me to get a good weight distribution between bags.

Idk this just seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

How is that better? It saves you from... pushing a cart?

Not to mention, until robots can handle every variety of produce and package, isn't the real life manifestation basically going to be a sixteen year old dashing about in a mirror-store hidden in the back, tracing your footsteps, picking up the things you scan, and putting them in a cart?

A few reasons:

1. Potential for less waste through 1) people not avoiding ugly produce, 2) not leaving refrigerated stuff on a non-refrigerated shelf, 3) leaving freezer doors open, 4) stealing things.

2. Less congestion in the browsing section.

3. Better stock tracking.

4. Easier stock management. You don't have to have people move stock between a warehouse and a shelf.

5. And yes, you don't have to push a cart.

There are significant drawbacks too. The biggest one I can think of is that the fulfillment mechanism doesn't actually exist.

I think this is what culture shock feels like. I truly struggle to imagine a people for whom being relieved of the great burden of pushing a grocery cart is actually a significant pro. Do these people even cook food?

Wrt 3 & 4, when you've practically got two whole stores, one with stocked product and one with QR codes, you're not saving space or stock management. (You're not going to go straight from shipping boxes to customer's hands)

It's certainly a lot easier and faster to walk around a crowded grocery store without a cart than with one.

No idea why you are conflating the desire to push a shopping cars with the ability to cook food..

It seems like someone who finds grocery shopping an insufferable hassle is going to feel the same way about spending an hour or two cooking dinner.

Maybe it's true, and carts are a great burden on many people. I've just not seen it myself, so I'm a bit flabbergasted. Especially since children can ride in carts.

Cooking is enjoyable. Pushing card in a crowded store is not. You either feel annoyed that you're blocked by someone's, or feel awkward that yours is blocking others. From that perspective not having carts is beneficial to the store as well, since customers now can enjoy lingering in the store longer.

you forgot "instant checkout"

I doubt you would get that. You still have to wait for fulfillment. I guess at least you probably wouldn't be in a line.

It allows a store to open where it might not have been profitable or possible. It saves you money by allowing the retailer to lower prices.

Imagine being able to open a Walmart Supercenter in the middle of, say, San Francisco(like that would ever happen but anyway). They'd never be able to afford the real estate for a traditional supercenter, but they might be able to afford a super-tower.

How is that different from buying groceries online with in-store pickup?

> I could see an Amazon/Walmart/etc store where you reserve the shelf space for presentation, but the goods are actually stored on higher floors and delivered to the customer upon checkout?

let's you decouple storage location from presentation location. i assume the grocery store knows what items are most frequently purchased together, and ensures they're as far apart as possible in presentation-space. but in this model they could then keep them nearby in storage-space, making it easier for them to load your bag up.

(also the instant you walk in, they can probably figure out the things you're most likely to get, and move them to some staging area to go in your bag as soon as you scan it.)

That might work. I envision something close to Ikea (but in a much smaller footprint) where product collection is batched at the end of the store route. In fact, surely they (Ikea) have tossed this idea around. Probably encountered some roadblocks due to the size and weight of some of their furniture offerings. And how about insincere actors who just want to make some heavy furniture fly around the store?

Unclear how the batching section would be any different from just a grocery store. Grocery stores aren’t display heavy like furniture needs to be, and you can’t condense the packaging

Do we really need another grocery store chain though? Whole Foods cornered the high-end grocery market (or created it, if you want to debate).

Introducing yet another generic grocery chain to the already saturated, age-old red ocean market doesn't seem reasonable unless they're trying to create walk-up warehouses for online grocery delivery.

I welcome Amazon's attempt to bring changes to the existing grocery store market. Maybe they'll figure something out, or maybe they'll fail. Either way, I'm happy to have more options as a consumer.

>have more options as a consumer

Not if they succeed. The grocery market is only so large, and if Amazon pushes other other grocery chains, consumers now have less choice.

Argos in the UK works this way. It is slow.

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