Would subscription based grocery ever work?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36630974

by askmany • 3 years ago

5 14 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do you think Subscription model could ever work for grocery shopping ? since 60-65% of the grocery cart remains same most of the time , thus it should work but it doesnt! why?

perryraskin• 3 years ago

Technically this already exists. There's Amazon Subscribe & Save (and similar) for this reason, pretty much. It may not be a subscription like you are describing, but it accomplishes the goal: set it and forget it for consistent grocery (or other) purchases, and get a nice discount.

I wonder if a legit subscription service, for perhaps a select group of items that a user consistently purchases, would work. Could be complicated when things like eggs fluctuate so much in price.

askmany5• 3 years ago

yeah price fluctuation would be a major challenge.

WhatDFHere• 3 years ago

Yes and no. While staples of pantry items may be same or similar on a week to week basis, epicurean palates of many shoppers shift from week to week to embrace different recipes, diets and exploratory dishes for breakfast/lunch/dinner. What the balance of these unique ingredients pose impacts a subscription model. Coupled with most shoppers like to have the opportunity to pick the item(s) themselves which often times services like Amazon Fresh, Instacart, etc. do not yet do well. Finally, certain pantry items have various shelf and use life spans. Perhaps with an AI shopping tool, based on an individual's or family's needs this could be more efficient and profitable.

mtmail• 3 years ago

Even laundry detergent usage differs and that's something with no expiry date (I think). Amazon tried to counter that with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Dash , a button you press triggering an order.

"On March 1, 2019, Amazon discontinued the series, claiming that it was made unnecessary due to automatic reordering and product subscriptions."

askmany5• 3 years ago

yeah that is why i said "it. does not work" , but my question is can it ever work in the future ?

PaulHoule3• 3 years ago

My wife would emphasize this: if you are shopping for produce you want to choose products that are good quality on a given day and individual instances of those products that are better than average. If somebody else is picking there are agency problems.

Now we do have the problem that we struggle to find the time for grocery trips (ag work keeps my wife busy from sunrise to sundown.) Seems to me that a highly personalized delivery service backed by a full-service grocery that links your in-store experience to deliveries that you get could be a good idea, with regular deliveries approximating a “subscription” the economics would improve, overhead for $300 of groceries would not be much more than $30 and in our case we could tolerate deliveries coming in at a time that is cost-effective for the supermarket.

askmany5• 3 years ago

Yeah basically what subscription model would do is , that it would cut down on advertisement expenses and that expense saved could be given out to customers.

dotcoma2• 3 years ago

Check Cortilia.it in Italy if interested.

askmany5• 3 years ago

403 forbidden

dotcoma2• 3 years ago

Sorry about it -- it's working over here.

leros• 3 years ago

I use a local produce delivery service. They drop off a box of fresh produce every week with some variation. I can also subscribe to other grocery items through them or make one time purchases.

Would subscription based grocery ever work?

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