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WebVan is the most famous. As I see it, home grocery delivery is an infrastructure problem. WebVan failed by expanding rapidly in multiple markets, before they had the cash flow to really support even one market. Furthermore, the infrastructure they built was not really what they needed (which is why they should have started in one market and expanded.......make the mistakes at a small scale, then you know what to avoid when you scale up).

Now there are plenty of companies doing it. I know one person who does all their shopping this way. I had the impression Google was already doing this is in some markets.

You mean like this? http://www.peapod.com/

I was a very happy WebVan customer and really thought the company would succeed. I hate shopping for groceries, but WebVan made it easy and painless. They had a great business model that could have been highly profitable, but I think they tried to expand too fast. They should have stayed localized in the SF Bay Area until they became profitable, and then expanded to Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle. A West Coast base of operations would have permitted a sustainable growth curve.

But they decided to go nation-wide and spend a fortune building more automated warehouses in Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, GA and Washington DC before they ever began to recoup the start-up costs of their west coast operation. I suspect that was their fatal mistake. Their smaller competitors, like http://www.peapod.com/ (a subsidiary of the Andronico's Market chain) are still in business and doing fine. I seem to recall that my wife was impressed by how much cheaper the products were priced on WebVan when compared to the brick and mortar supermarket chains like Lucky and Safeway (she actually pulled out grocery receipts to compare the prices of items we purchased regularly). For the convenience of their service, WebVan could have charged more for their products and still been successful, but they chose to undercut the big chains to develop a loyal customer base. We were loyal customers, and many of our friends were as well. That's why we mourn the loss of WebVan, because it really was a new, exciting and groundbreaking business model.

I seem to recall that lots of their infrastructure was sold off in the bankruptcy process, and Safeway re-painted most of their delivery vans and they are still in use today.

and ditched my car 7 years ago. I live in Boston across the street from a subway stop. There's another one a few hundred yards away, a third line 1 mile away and a fourth 1.3 miles away. I ride my bicycle year round for many trips 5 miles or less, and arrive faster than the subway or a car. Walking a mile is also no big deal, and I occasionally car pool if a neighbor and I are both headed to a meeting or event.

What about groceries? Smaller trips or deliveries. What about big purchases? If I ever needed one, I'd borrow a friend's car or sign on to zipcar. What about weekends in NYC? I take Acela or the bus. What about weekends in rural Vermont? I rent a car for $40 a day. The combined total of non-air travel for my wife and I: $2500/yr, and that includes a combined total of 5 months of time out of Boston. Can your car ownership costs -- insurance, gas, tires, lubes, car payment/depreciation, parking, tickets, tolls, taxes, and repairs match that?

Yeah, you can ditch your car. Doesn't mean you'll never have to borrow or rent one, but it does mean you'll likely save money, operate an auto for fewer miles per year, get a bit more exercise, have a chance to read a magazine or book while using transportation once in a while, and contribute to a higher quality of life for yourself and your community. Don't let the perfect [a completely car-free society] get in the way of the good [a society where the average miles driven per driver is under 5,000, or even less].

In my area, Peapod still does this.

I, personally, really enjoy grocery shopping (believe it or not) so I haven't used them, but I've heard it's pretty good and not too expensive.

You can order groceries online? How?

It depends on where you live. Around here we have Peapod. It's overpriced though.

Right, my first two examples are bogus. I'm just hallucinating when I go to peapod.com and they're selling six different kinds of "fat free" and/or "no calorie" cooking sprays that all consist almost entirely of fat.

All the dozens of other sources on the web that it's easy to Google up who are also complaining about this problem are also hallucinating with me. And the FDA's been allowing this for years despite consumer complaints. Some big companies like Coke, Pepsi, and Kraft are revising their labels voluntarily because of consumer complaints about the misleading labels resulting from the FDA's guidelines.

Can you be more specific as to how this is bogus? Your linked page indicates that the FDA has serving size guidelines for some products. Admittedly, that is part of the problem. But I would think that, for my claims to be bogus, the products I'd mentioned would not be on the market with their lying labels for years, and currently available, despite complaints.

The FDA only suggests serving size information for some foods, and their suggestions are often misleading- like two oz of pasta being a serving. But they don't recommend serving sizes for many foods, and they don't enforce the sizes for foods for which they have guidelines, and their guidelines lead to plenty of misleading labels on their own. But while the serving size guidelines are wishy-washy, they're perfectly clear on the point that if there's less that .5 grams of fat "per serving" in a product, they can call it fat free, regardless of how much fat is in the container.

Then these guys are in real trouble.

I'm pretty sure that I can record a CD, burn it, and sell it, all without involving any major corporation. Hell, why even burn it? Why not just post it on my own webspace?

What if I were to post my self-recorded, self-produced CD online, and charge nothing for it?

Then you'd be doing a lot of things that 'distract from the art', and that many artists would rather pay someone else to do. You know, a lot of people pay someone to do their taxes, mow their yard, buy their groceries, etc ad infinitum. Enter the record labels...

I don't know if you've ever run a business before. I have, and there's a hell of a lot of things that need doing that have nothing to do with 'the product'. I got frustrated a lot, because I'd rather be coding than chasing after a payroll error or looking for health insurance or yelling at the power company. I'm sure a lot of musicians would rather be making music than dealing with the inevitable customer complaints due to some obscure SQL error in the shopping cart database code that they hired some friend of theirs to write who's now on vacation in Tahiti for two weeks. That's why record labels are useful.

Until someone can figure out that problem, there will always be artist demand for outsourcing the niggling details.

Peapod is still going strong in Chicago, perishables and all, and they seem to be in other markets as well. mt

I've never heard of this WebVan company, but the online grocery store that I do know - Peapod - is still around and, going by how often I've seen their vans parked in some residential neighbourhoods around Chicago, quite successful. And they do deliver perishables.

Peapod still delivers in Boston, and they're tied to one of the major grocery store chains here.

Pets.com, and Webvan.

Priceline almost went bust - remember how they used to sell all sorts of stuff, including groceries at Jewel grocery stores.

(Side note: I wonder what the going rate for jewel.com is. But I digress.)

And frankly, I can't believe Peapod is still running.

Actually, Peapod still sells groceries online, and for the convenience it's not bad...

Thankfully places like Whole Foods exist for some of us. For an elite few in North Carolina, we have Earth Fare. Earth Fare was one of the first to ban anything with high fructose corn syrup from their shelves.

Harris Teeter, also isolated to the mid-southeast region, has a growing selection of organic products as well as their own "HT Naturals" line. I vote with my wallet and buy 99% of my stuff from the organic lines. "No ecosystem is without waste", however, so some things I buy aren't organic, but I make a point to not buy anything specifically with HFCS in it. (Well except for one small item.)

My grandmother shops Ingles in her area but it, too, is a mid-southeast chain. They are now carrying a small, but growing, selection of organic foods.

Any respectable grocer will have a 'feature request' form you can fill out. Stop by the customer service desk and ask them for organic stuff. One popular organic brand is Horizon Organic. Many organic lines also directly benefit the growers of these prodcuts so you can rest assured that the grower is getting a fair price and not being submitted to the Wal-Mart abuse.

It can be done, but it's tough and it's gonna cost. But if you're dedicated to the ideal, you can make your vote be heard. To further 'prove' the point to the grocers, you should apply for their respective "cult cards" (Harris Teeter VIC, Ingles Advantage, etc). These are shopping trend and tracking devices which tell the bean counters that you actually care about your items. Of course, you get to save a bundle (and not just on car insurance). My single self has has 'saved' (or cost-avoided) $353 year-to-date.

It works. It can be done.

I didn't realize any form of peapod survied the dot.com burst. PeaPad was one of those companies that grew fast, really fast, and died even faster. It's main site is http://peapod.com/ and I am suprised to see it still there. I can't remember it's only other main competitor at the time but I doubt they are still around.

Many how many MILLIONS were spent building those companies up just so folks wouldn't have to buy their groceries anymore?

Peapod Currently delivers in:
Chicago(land)
Milwaukee
SE Wisconsin

plus with deals with stop-n-shop
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
New York
New Jersey
    --- I can't help but wonder how much of each of those states they deliver too. I doubt my mom in Esperance NY can get her groceries delivered. Nope, I checked her Zip and it isn't available there. Figures.

and as oc255 mentioned Giant Food partners with PeaPod in the following areas:
Washington, DC
Maryland
Virginia
    --- again I doubt the entire state is available Most of MD and Va are pretty rural.

Its obviously good, because even though it is overhyped and overexposed, people are still buying it.

PeaPod failed? News to me: http://www.peapod.com/

They have - it's called Peapod...thanks, tho.

Also, devices like these are going to become even more popular very soon...

Hmm... As long as they know you're coming, let them get your groceries and have them ready when you get there. Waiting by the curb. I think this is already being done with robotic "pickers" in more of a warehouse/factory type setting with bins and conveyor belts but they also deliver. Pricey. Maybe a regular 'Kroger' type store could pay the laid off baggers to wear roller blades and do the 'picking'? I'd pay extra if I never had to set foot in the store.

Peapod was bought by Ahold a Dutch company that owns quite a few U.S grocery chains, and Peapod has been doing pretty well.

Here in Boston, there are ads everywhere for Peapod at Stop & Shop stores.

I've been using peapod , which is stop and shop's online service. I can say nothing but good things about them. The biggest benefit is that we save alot of money and time. My wife and I used to go on sunday afternoon to the grocery store, and just basically impulse buy what we thought would be enough food for the week. We'd end up with far to many cookies and ice creams and not enough healthy food. Peapod has helped us alot with this since we can just log in anytime we think of something we need or have run out of, and then save the cart until next time. We typically start making the order right after we recieve previous order, and will add items for the next couple of weeks (I find it easier to order 2 weeks of groceries at a time). Delivery fee is only about 5 dollars if you order over $100 worth of groceries. They also remember all your previous orders so you can look back and see what you ordered last month or last year, and you can copy/paste a text list into their search program to speed up searching for items. It's really a great program, and I reccomend you try it at least once if it is available in your area. And now for the shameless plug, if you do sign up as a new customer based on my positive thoughts: my account is peapod at heem.org of course substituting the word at with the @ symbol.

I've been using Peapod in DC since 1999 and I can't imagine ever going back to a supermarket.

My conversion was simple: my wife and I lived in an apartment and a typical shopping trip was capped off by parking in the basement garage and lugging countless bags (esp. those filled with cans) up a flight of steps, waiting for an elevator, walking to our door fumbling for keys, and then heading all the way back down for one or two more trips.

When we moved into our house, I figured the need for Peapod might diminish, but if anything we use it even more. We still an organic foods market for fresh vegetables, but for staples -- especially ordering cans in bulk for the pantry -- nothing beats paying just a little more for someone to deliver it to your door.

Now if only someone could resurrect Kozmo! Ordering fresh bagels and milk on Saturday morning and having it delivered 30 minutes later -- and returning your DVDs rented the night before in kind -- amazing...

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

And I just used PeaPod the other day too. At this rate, I'll never have to leave the house again. =D

Excuse me while I go set up a cron job to order me a large olive and anchovie pizza every third friday of months starting with J.

• Check buying habits for favorite foods on PeaPod.
• Place order for most bought chips/decongestant by your account.
• You: Wait for PeaPod delivery to arrive.

Works nice, except the bagger who mashes your bread is now driving a 5-ton delivery truck and will now treat the trees near your driveway the same way he used to treat your bread.

Just out of curiosity I checked to see if the internet grocery delivery service in Boston takes food stamps. It doesn't, and it probably will never, but it wouldn't strike me as the worst thing in the world if it did. If I were a single mother with a couple of young children, I can easily imagine that I might do a better job buying cheaper, healthier food online than in peron at a grocery store.

Peapod by Stop and Shop is your other option in Boston. My wife uses them and has been happy with the prices & selection. They deliver (and carry up stairs!) to your door within time slots.

Well, so much for that - an e-mail went out today that HomeRuns is ceasing all operations today (day before Friday the 13th). Shame - their service ran circles around the competition.

Groceries from PeaPod: $80

Shampoo from DrugStore.com: $4

Call Girls from an Online Pimp: $800

Pulling off this lame Publicity Stunt: Priceless

Peapod, which offers online grocery ordering and delivery, ran into this. Peapod does fulfilment by sending people into Safeway with pick lists. This has Safeway's full co-operation, and Peapod's product list is from Safeway's product list. Despite this, 40% of ordered items aren't found on the shelf. Safeway thought it would be 5%.

Still, many online retailers are botching the ordering process. Competition will fix this rapidly. Here's a startup suggestion: a service like Web Site Garage that monitors retail sites, testing the ordering process.