Slashdot Mirror

No the problem's not delivery, that's well understood. The problems's relationships with suppliers, which for groceries is essentially farmers. In the UK, as several people have mentioned, all the big supermarkets do home delivery. And they all have close supplier relationships. To keep prices down they prefer to deal directly. See for example http://www.tescofarming.com/ There might be space for another one, but the competition's fierce - here's a selection of major chains which already have fully debugged delivery chains: http://www.tesco.com/groceries http://groceries.asda.com/ http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries http://www.ocado.com/webshop (Note that Asda is owned by WalMart and that WalMart and Tesco are the first and second most profitable retailers in the *world* measured by profits.)

http://www.tesco.com/
http://www.ocado.com/
http://www.asda.co.uk/asdashop.html

Works fine in the UK...

But, I gotta ask...how the hell do you go shopping for things like groceries over there, if you don't have a car??

This is probably getting off-topic, but...

All the big supermarkets offer online grocery shopping with home delivery - e.g. Ocado, Tesco, Sainsbury's - so quite a few people use that.

Alternatively, you can shop more frequently than once a week. Although I have a car, I sometimes stop off on the way home from work (I'm within walking distance) and pick up some pizza, beer etc. when I can't be bothered to cook a proper meal.

Also, you can always order a taxi to take you and your shopping home, though this only really makes economic sense in a town/city.

When I was at college and had no car, I used to cycle to the supermarket with a large backpack and fill that up. You can get quite a lot of groceries in a 60-litre rucksack.

That's cos Britain's hogging it all.

Kind of makes me regret eating some last night

And in the UK there's always Ocado.

Although the CNN article focuses on the US experience, the UK has had successful and profitable online grocery shopping for several years. UK chain Tesco was one of the first - with an in-house developed software system - and now most of the UK major chains have followed suit with similar systems.

The Tesco system was initially thought to be un-economic as it simply comprised staff going round existing stores and loading carts that where then delivered using small vans to homes in the locality - but apparently its been profitable since the outset.

Tesco's approach is compared to that of WebVan (who feature in the CNN article) in this document written by a Prof at Wharton (free - but registration required)

More recently, a WebVan style UK Grocery operation called Occado has started too - working with upmarket Grocer Waitrose. Their approach is to use central warehouses to fill orders and distribute.

All this competition has resulted in competition between providers both on price (several offer the service 'free' for spends over a threshold of about 75) and quality (for example, discounts if delivery times are missed, or the goods / brands you order are not in stock etc.)

I used to shop a lot online when I lived in Denver, CO from King Supers. When I moved to the UK I thought I'd try the same, but had the same problem as veg. Deliveries are almost always late, quality sucks, stuff missing, rude delivery guys...

I tried again not so long ago with a new UK company called Ocado. They're much better than all the rest! The only problem is they only serve the London area, but they've only been delivering for about a year now, so they're probably waiting to make more money before expanding...

Highly recommended if you're fed up with Tesco's and the rest...