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Comment by dangoldin | Hacker News Reader

This quote summarizes it all for me: "Amazon just bailed on restaurant delivery in the U.S."

If amazon, a "real" business with a reputation built on ruthlessly cutting margin can't get it to work why would anyone else?

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I mean, think about it – Amazon can't run it like their current delivery service. They can't mark it as delivered, but then not deliver it until the next day. They can't drive up to the curb, throw it over your fence and then drive off. They can't claim to have delivered it but just not bothered. They can't say they're giving you a pizza from Pizza Hut and then actually give you a pizza some guy made in his basement. In other words, they can't run it like their current business.

Yea for sure. At the same time they did acquire Whole Foods and are doing food delivery through prime. They do own the warehouses here rather than acting as couriers but I would not be surprised if they just found out the economics (especially given their strengths) to just not work out for them.

There are many businesses Amazon doesn’t enter. I personally don’t see how Amazon’s strengths can help them compete against other food delivery services. After all, same day delivery is the norm there.

I do suspect their focus on logistics and having an existing network would make it easier for them than others. They are doing food delivery through Amazon Fresh and also have been hiring contractors to do package delivery. Food, of course, has it's own constraints but compared to many they would be in a decent spot.

I mean, they canceled their phone program too, you don't see Apple packing it up.

True. But that industry already has a duopoly with very strong network effects. Food delivery is extremely fragmented and it looks as if there's no one actually doing it profitably.

Amazon just invested £500m into Deliveroo based in Europe...

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