Amazon Stops Accepting New Online Grocery Customers Amid Surging Demand (reuters.com) 28
Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders from existing customers buying food online during the coronavirus outbreak, the company said. From a report: Many shoppers recently seeking to purchase groceries from the Seattle-based e-commerce company found they could not place orders due to a lack of available delivery slots. Amazon said it would have to relegate all new online grocery customers to a wait list starting Monday while working on adding capacity each week. In recent weeks, it increased the number of Whole Foods stores offering grocery pickup to more than 150 locations, up from 80 previously.
Amazon also plans to shorten some Whole Foods stores' hours for the public so its employees can more quickly fulfill online grocery orders, the company said. The moves illustrates how the world's largest online retailer, which showed its ambition to enter the grocery industry by acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017, is now leveraging its presence both online and in physical stores to handle high demand from consumers who are stuck eating at home, with many restaurant dining rooms closed to the public.
Amazon also plans to shorten some Whole Foods stores' hours for the public so its employees can more quickly fulfill online grocery orders, the company said. The moves illustrates how the world's largest online retailer, which showed its ambition to enter the grocery industry by acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017, is now leveraging its presence both online and in physical stores to handle high demand from consumers who are stuck eating at home, with many restaurant dining rooms closed to the public.
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Here in the Bay Area, pickup slots are available from some grocery stores as soon as two weeks from now, and deliveries are booked up for the next month. Amazon is the only company that has a prayer of being able to handle the complete logistics failure that we're seeing at this point.
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That's probably true, and also a pretty scary thought... or funny if you really start to think about it...
If Jeff Bezos were an 'actual' super villain, he may have 'actually' succeeded in taking over the world.
Odd, I always thought it would have been Elon Musk, and probably by installing a laser on the moon or tunneling under the... Wait a second, is Elon Musk ACTUALLY a super villain!?
Re:Plenty of alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
That one order stocked me up for a good while to come.
Costco uses Instacart....I didn't have any delivery fees or anything added either.
I was more than happy to over tip the shopper/delivery lady.
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In my area I've got Costco, Target, and at least two grocery chains available through Instacart. I haven't pulled the trigger on delivery yet, but I've noticed that availability changes wildly from day to day or even hour to hours. Right now the first scheduled delivery 2 hour block is at noon on Saturday, but if I choose "Fast and Flexible" I can get a delivery within two hours of right now.
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This was my first time doing Instancart of any of this.
I was working from the Costco site, had my order and it star
Instacart (Score:3)
workers have been striking due to shitty pay and treatment...
Costco claims to deliver here but they've been consistently out of everything that matters. (i.e. useless) with a week+ wait on what's left.
Kroger has delivery (instacart, delivery fees) but it's been overwhelmed, pick up orders are a week out.
Meijer uses Shipt as its back end (paid subscription) and it's actually got a few next day slots open again but are chronically out everything.
None of these are taking new customers because they're overwhelm
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Are you in a very dense, urban city type city?
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Indianapolis, IN. We are (were?) the 12th largest city in the US but I haven't looked for a long time.
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" I'm thinking Amazon is getting to big and important, anyway."
This is evidence to the contrary, if it was big enough, it wouldn't have problems.
In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't just Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been noticing every online retailer can't process orders, particularly in my zip code. Walmart, Safeway, Target and others' systems are completely hosed.
I did get an order in for non-edibles at Costco back on the 4th. Still no delivery in sight although they did charge my debit card for part of it.
The biggest problem appears to be in the inventory back-end. In pre-pandemic days I noticed that often the item count on the web site would not match what they actually had. The inventory increment numbers seem to apply when things hit their loading dock, where boxes can sit for weeks. The decrement numbers are absolutely not taken directly from the PoS systems. The systems rely on periodic physical inventory counts which would be required by accounting rules.
In other words the inventory systems were designed to satisfy the needs of the CFO office filing monthly reports for financial reporting and inventory tax purposes. That would have been in place for as long as the store was around. The online order processing systems were tacked on later and the inventory systems had a second layer added on for that, but the interface between the two is shaky.
Then there is the issue of what they call "shrinkage" and the system is totally helpless in the face of that.
This is mostly speculation, but it matches what I see.
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Boxes are probably not sitting for weeks (Score:2)
The problem is most likely that they can't keep up with demand from people stockpiling.
Moreover they don't _want_ to keep up with that demand. The problem with the stockpilers is that in a few months when things settle down they'll start going through their stash, meaning a large drop off in sales.
This is why TP is going to be hard to come by for months. If you're a TP company you can't just make more ev
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This is why TP is going to be hard to come by for months. If you're a TP company you can't just make more even if you've got the capacity. You'll go out of business when when over extend yourself meeting short term spikes in demand.
Shortfalls for months? I doubt it. It's not like people are actually using more TP now than they did a month ago - just at home instead of at work. I'd bet that within just a few weeks the supply chain will have largely caught back up as it shifts from commercial to consumer production, which some suspect is as much the cause of the shortfall as panic buying. And consumer TP producers are already ramping up production. P&G (Charmin) is opening a previously idled production facility, for example. I'
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I have been noticing every online retailer can't process orders, particularly in my zip code. Walmart, Safeway, Target and others' systems are completely hosed.
Don't tell me their sites run on COBOL-based systems too?
Sign of things to come (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sign of things to come (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably not (Score:2)
And given that we're not going to "let 'er rip" we'll start seeing drop offs by May and a careful return to normalcy in June (provided we can get enough testing going).
On the other
How much do you really eat out? (Score:1)
high demand from consumers who are stuck eating at home, with many restaurant dining rooms closed to the public
Do that many people really eat out so much under normal circumstances?
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high demand from consumers who are stuck eating at home, with many restaurant dining rooms closed to the public
Do that many people really eat out so much under normal circumstances?
Well, it's certainly a factor for a lot of people. Many will grab breakfast from a coffee shop on the way to work. Many will grab lunch from a deli while at work. Some more will grab dinner on the way home. Now if all three meals are at home, that's going to have a significant impact, shifting where food is consumed.
In Canada, we're now dumping milk because people are shifting from consuming processed milk at restaurants (usually in the form of cheese) to liquid milk bought at grocery. The food chai
Re:How much do you really eat out? (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife is the general manager at a local fast food restaurant. I think her answer to that might surprise you under normal circumstances. =)
But what is just astonishing (to me) is how much busier it's gotten since the pandemic started and our local government declared a state of emergency started enforcing a lot of things like social distancing and business operation rules. When I say busier, I think most days the actual sales aren't quite as high, but there isn't really a distinction between rush our or any other part of the day right now. It's pretty much bumper to bumper cars from open to close, and she's often having a hard time closing because it beeps again as soon as a car moves ahead. This is despite reduced hours, closing of the dining room and big reduction in staff (not to mention the risk of being fined or arrested for being out too much or not adhering to the restrictions).
I thought the cocktail of everything going on might make people feel inclined to cook at home...
Who cares? (Score:2)
World's largest retailer? (Score:2)
No. World's largest patent troll.
Get it right.
Local companies (Score:5, Informative)
The local restaurant supply stores have started selling to the public now. I just placed an order for all kinds of beef, sausage and pork chops. They even offer freshly baked bread. Delivery was free if you spent over $100. Totally worth it as the grocery stores now have reduced hours and only let so many people inside at once. I'm not making grocery shopping into an all day affair.
My biggest problem is their BAD searching (Score:2)
They let you search for "Fresh Direct" and for "Whole Foods". But they do not let you exclude those items.
So when you are searching for say paper plates, you get a ton of paper plates delivered via Fresh or Whole, whose time slots are sold out and you will never get.
You have to hunt through them by hand ignoring all the Fresh and Whole till you find something that they will actually ship to you.
In other news ... (Score:2)
In other news ... be sure to take your temperature with thermometers and batteries that you can't get.
And be sure to sanitize your hands with hand sanitizer that you can't buy.
Next up: make bricks without straw.