Amazon Will Open its Own Grocery Store Next Year (cnet.com) 55
Amazon on Monday said it plans to open its first new brand of grocery store in California next year, as it amps up its ambitious push to become a bigger name in food. From a report: "Amazon is opening a grocery store in Woodland Hills in 2020," an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to CNET on Monday morning, soon after the company published four new jobs postings for the location. Woodland Hills is a neighborhood in Los Angeles. The store will be different from Amazon-owned Whole Foods, the company said. It didn't say whether it will open more of these locations, what its selection or pricing will be, or what the brand name is. But in the jobs postings, the company described the Woodland Hills location as "Amazon's first grocery store," suggesting that it will have the Amazon brand name and that the company could expand to multiple sites.
Why? (Score:2)
Didn't they already buy Whole Paycheck?
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Woodland Hills is anything but poor.
It will be after Amazon takes all their grocery money.
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So? You can say the same thing about Palo Alto too.
You can say the same about many places. The richest cities have the most homeless. Rich cities can afford better shelters and services, and they are full of liberals who vote for homeless-friendly policies. They tend to also be in places with nice weather.
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I predict this will be a warehouse food store, with all the usual brands, just buried in a sea of low-quality knock-offs made in China. They could call it Half-a**ed Foods.
It's hard enough to shop for things on Amazon as it is, when I can throw keyword exclusions and Google searches at the problem. I can't even imagine trying to shop at an Amazon-branded brick-and-mortar store, where you have to do it by eye. :-D
Why stop? (Score:1)
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I mean, let’s imagine a future scenario in which the rich successfully hoover-up all but the last few dollars they don’t already control right now. They end up very, VERY powerful indeed. They could make game shows for their own amusement where people beat and pound and kick the shit out of each other for the sake of maybe winning a few of those precious dollars. Women, (and sometimes men, too,) sell access to their bodies’ fun places for what, to the trillionaires, is literally as pocket-
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Problem is, “Whole Foods” doesn’t include the word “Amazon”.
I expect in two or three years there won’t be such a place as Whole Foods.
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There's a certain grocery store in my area that has a "2" in its legal name to separate it from a long-standing store which is the same name without the "2"... seems like there's a bad staff at the old store, and they're trying to correct it with the new store. Okay, I used to visit both stores' owner in her home office because she doesn't want to work in an office connected to one of her stores like her competitor does.
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Seems like Whole Paycheck was bought to shut down... exactly over the Whole Paycheck problem. If this new store works, it could take over the existing locations of Whole Paycheck.
Does the Amazon Brand hold that much popularity? (Score:2)
Much like how on the XBox it was called the XBox not "Microsoft XBox" or "Microsoft Game Console". The Microsoft Name is about serious work stuff, and that OS that is needed for your computer to work.
Amazon is already a scary company, we tolerate
Speak for yourself (Score:1)
I have never purchased anything from Amazon. Never will. It's already gone many steps too far for me.
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<i>we</i> (Except DogDude and the few others who will respond to this posting saying that they are not a customer of a popular service for what ever reason) <i> tolerate it for online shopping, because we can often get a good deal there, and it normally sells what we are looking for.</i>
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Granted, I didn't read the entire article, but I don't think they gave a name for the new grocery store. Perhaps they won't use the Amazon brand....
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Granted, I didn't read the entire article, but I don't think they gave a name for the new grocery store. Perhaps they won't use the Amazon brand....
From the summary:
But in the jobs postings, the company described the Woodland Hills location as "Amazon's first grocery store," suggesting that it will have the Amazon brand name and that the company could expand to multiple sites.
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I took that to mean that it will just be Amazon's first grocery store....
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I took that to mean that it will just be Amazon's first grocery store....
But it obviously isn't. Amazon already has over 500 grocery stores.
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It is common for a large company to offer a wide range of services across many different sectors. However for Amazon we mostly think Online Shopping, not Local Grocery Stores. It would make sense for them to use the Whole Food brand for this, vs the Amazon Brand.
Uh, with online shopping we mostly think how can I buy this shit cheap without getting off my lazy ass.
50% of the American e-commerce market flows through Amazon.
And you feel the hundreds of millions of lazy Americans who "tolerate" Amazon, will somehow fail to recognize the value of cheap groceries delivered directly to their door?
Riiiight.
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You forget that for a lot of people, it's either buy it online on Amazon or drive at least an hour to the nearest city to buy the item I need, then at least another hour to get back home.
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You forget that for a lot of people, it's either buy it online on Amazon or drive at least an hour to the nearest city to buy the item I need, then at least another hour to get back home.
Probably not the case today with food.
When it comes to the United States of Obesity, Americans eat often, and a lot. Grocery stores tend to cater to that insane demand by building their human feed lots every 500 yards.
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In rural areas they need to travel 15-20 miles to get to the nearest grocery store. If you have a Car it isn't that bad, just inconvenient, but if you don't have a car, food shopping is difficult at best. The reason why a lot of people live out in rural areas is because it it too expensive to
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If they are planning something along the lines of a discounter like Aldi or Lidl, then the Whole Foods brand wouldn't work.
Why doesn't Bezos just... (Score:2)
... get it over with and rename the company to Buy-N-Large?
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... get it over with and rename the company to Buy-N-Large?
Monopoly would be a more fitting name.
Ironically, there's Monopoly: Cheaters Edition. You know, for those who are Too Big To Fail and will buy themselves out of any legal problem.
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Monopoly would be a more fitting name.
Amazon has 5% of the retail market in America.
Walmart has 9%.
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Monopoly would be a more fitting name.
Amazon has 5% of the retail market in America.
Walmart has 9%.
I guess 5% doesn't sound so scary when you exclude the fact that it also happens to represent 49% of US e-commerce.
And at the end of the day, we're really sitting here splitting hairs over which monopoly is biggest? In 20 years, every American will be employed by one out of a dozen mega-corps if we continue ignoring the hell out of the larger problem here.
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... get it over with and rename the company to Buy-N-Large?
Because contract negotiations with Fred Willard are currently at an impasse.
My bet is for a giant vending machine (Score:5, Interesting)
The logical next step is full automation. Employees will only stock the store for an hour or two per day (likely in the middle of the night when they can't be pestered by customers). Orders will be placed online and automatically filled by robots; customers will pick them up from electronic lockers. Cold stuff kept in cold lockers, room temp in room temp, etc. Expect lots of items in boxes. Fresh produce is still possible but don't expect to pick out your lettuce anymore or to get artisan varieties of tomatoes.
It's not exactly the same as a giant vending machine but it's not far from it.
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I am also impressed by the fact that ALDI allows their cashiers to sit down.
It now seems strange to me that most places in the US make cashiers stand. Especially since a good number of cashier jobs are held by elderly people.
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It now seems strange to me that most places in the US make cashiers stand.
I once worked in a company that had warehouse pickers and packers. The packers worked standing in a fixed location. We changed their work stations so they could sit down. Productivity fell by about 30%. I am not sure why, but their work slowed when they were sitting. We transitioned them back to standing.
Call center workers are also more productive when standing [tandfonline.com].
If allowing cashiers to sit didn't hurt productivity, everyone would be doing it. But almost no one does it.
Disclaimer: I have an adjustable
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I have to be a cashier as part of my job. Thankfully not often anymore. We all stand all the time with the one exception that an employee got for their various...problems.
One day I had to go up to check and my store manager was actually up front at the desk. I wanted to mess with him, so I dragged the chair over to my lane, opened up and proceeded to do my job. I wanted to see what he would say, if anything.
Needless to say, I hated checking like this. It took way to long and literally was causing me extra s
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You were at a checkout set up for a standing worker and you added a chair. You are now in the wrong place at the wrong height for everything.
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Easy, because if they have a chair, they may sit. But then they have a job that may require them getting up again, and it takes a really long time to go from standing to sitting to standing.
For a job like c
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"We changed their work stations so they could sit down. Productivity fell by about 30%."
What did you change besides adding a chair?
"If allowing cashiers to sit didn't hurt productivity, everyone would be doing it. But almost no one does it."
Almost no one does it, except in places where everyone does it.
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It now seems strange to me that most places in the US make cashiers stand. Especially since a good number of cashier jobs are held by elderly people.
They usually have to cover for the bagger at least part of the time, which means they have to stand up for that anyway. I only find it offensive or confusing when they don't have a anti-fatigue mat to stand on. Sitting checkstands also take up more space than standing ones, albeit only a couple of inches. Still, who doesn't wish they had another couple of inches?
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In Australia Aldi has less automation than other supermarkets. Aldi has cashiers at all checkouts, unlike Woolworths and Coles where they try to steer you to self-service checkouts.
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In Australia Aldi has less automation than other supermarkets.
That depends on what criteria you use to measure automation. You can also automate the process by reducing the variety of products (which makes ordering and stocking easier), regulating physical item sizes (which also makes stocking easier), using larger bar codes (for faster scanning), and carrying fewer items that don't come directly from your own supply chain.
Aldi has cashiers at all checkouts, unlike Woolworths and Coles where they try to steer you to self-service checkouts.
I can't speak for their corporate decisions but I suspect that Aldi does this to reduce opportunities for theft. Self checkouts are known to be
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None of that's automation - that's just supply chain management and logistics.
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That depends on what criteria you use to measure automation. You can also automate the process by reducing the variety of products (which makes ordering and stocking easier), regulating physical item sizes (which also makes stocking easier), using larger bar codes (for faster scanning), and carrying fewer items that don't come directly from your own supply chain.
None of that's automation - that's just supply chain management and logistics.
That comes down to how we want to define automation. If automation is the reduction of human labor through processes that happen automatically, I would argue there is lots of automation going on with those steps by way of how much labor we have removed through them.
The Aldi locations near me are all set up such that it is exceptionally difficult to leave the store without walking down a cashier aisle, and the aisles are physically blocked if they don't have a cashier operating them.
All the supermarkets are arranged like that. The only way out is through a checkout, and they'll physically block the ones that aren't operating.
Aldi takes it to a different level though - at least where I live. Here the Aldi stores are set up that the entrance door puts you directly into the first aisle of the store with no room to move to a different aisle until you reach the end of
Re: My bet is for a giant vending machine (Score:2)
Self-checkout is slower. Aldi has shown that with cashiers, the process is faster. Self-checkout is just a way to reduce employee had count. It may feel faster because you're actively engaged in doing something rather than waiting for someone, but it's actually slower.
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Self-checkout is slower.
A cashier is, without a doubt, faster than an average Joe at scanning items. And the system that is presented for self-checkout is significantly different from the one that runs the regular POS - and it is designed to be slower at that.
Aldi has shown that with cashiers, the process is faster.
For one customer, yes. Aldi isn't the only one who has shown that.
Self-checkout is just a way to reduce employee had count.
It does more than that, but undoubtedly that is the main advantage from the employer's standpoint.
It may feel faster because you're actively engaged in doing something rather than waiting for someone, but it's actually slower.
For one customer, yes. However if you have a small number of items (which is what the self checkout is de
If its anything like the website... (Score:3)
Great, now you can get some BangFaoPhen chinese grown lettuce with labels written in broken English, produced very much nearby where BangFaoPhen produces its batteries and flimsy electronics products.
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And once you've eaten it, the lettuce sets you on fire.
Nice! (Score:1)
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don't underestimate the deep pockets of their current handlers, big pharmy and big ag have been at it for decades
Turning "Amazon isn't a Monopoly" to 11. Someone c (Score:2)
Not the first (Score:1)
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Amazon Go is in a bunch of places, but it's hardly a real grocery store. And sorry to say AmazonGo stores near me really suck. It's 80% wrapped food such as you would get at the airport the coolers like sandwiches, wraps, salads, hummus, etc. The food is average to less than average in taste/quality/freshness and its still pretty darn expensive at the Go stores. Yes no check out lines, but whoopdee doo. If I wanted fast and gross for lunch I can go to JimmyJohns.
I agree with one of the other posters, I