Webvan Out Of Gas

Alowishus writes: "Looks like it's the end of the road for Webvan. Their website appears to be down, and Oakland local news reported employees clearing out their possessions from the company's warehouse. A press conference is scheduled for Monday." First kozmo.com, now this -- I'm giving up hope on ultra-cheap delivery by web as a business model to support my retirement fund. Perhaps Peapod can buck the trend, though.

Comments

Webvan

[chrysalis]

Sorry, but what is Webvan ? I've never heard about it so far.

-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.

Re:Webvan

[GreyPoopon]

It was a service that allowed you to shop for your groceries online, and then delivered them to your home at only a modest premium. Many times, they offered same day delivery.

GreyPoopon
--

Re:Webvan

[anpe]

More info here

Re:Webvan

[cecil36]

I'm a consultant as well. The company that I work with has a standing order program where people can set up an order and delivery cycle for just about everything that they need. Granted that the above post covers a few valid topics, by sitting down with my customer, I can chat with them and find out how often they need an item, so when their current supply is either gone or almost gone, the replacement stock is sitting on their front door. Plus, the money that I am making with this is nothing to complain about.

Re:Webvan

[British]

You can ski down their stock price chart!

Consequently, why am I being told to "slow down, cowboy!" when the last time I posted was about a week ago? Argh.

Re:Webvan

[Skapare]

1. Price - Food is a large part of most budgets, even for the folks Webvan targeted. Discounting is very much part of the grocery business, and Webvan didn't play that game. High margin items, such as soda, were cheaper at stores than on Webvan. The major chains have made shoppers very price sensitive, and Webvan was viewed at the upper end of the price range (whether they were or not is irrelevant), which meant people would use them in a pinch, but still went to the store for their major purchases.

I would be willing to pay a little more for home delivery, as long as it is reliably done when promised. Given the poor quality so many businesses under pressure from venture capitalists have gone to, I would worry that they would be able to keep it up. But making the margin so high that for my order to be way more than the cost of driving to the regular grocery store would have soon become a serious negative. If their costs for delivery and e-commerce were too much, they would have a problem. But they would have to be quality, too.

2. Order Size - Grocery shopping is really impulse buying - stores want to get you in with a few specials, to get you to walk through their store. They know you'll see other items you need, adding to the total sale per customer. Even if you go in with a list, you probably would find a few things you needed that you forgot. Webvan, because of its web-based model, wasn't really good at capturing the impulse buy that drives the total sale. Much of the buying is touch and feel - people like to see the meat, fruit, and vegetables and pick what they like. Yes, Webvan would refund the money, but that doesn't do you much good when your trying to make a salad and the vegetables aren't up to your standards (although I must say everything I got from Webvan was fine - but they still need to overcome the feeling that I must see it before I buy it).

Did they have a means for you to add on to your order if it was still N hours before delivery?

3. Advantage over stores - While it was great that Webvan delivered, they completely missed the "I need it now" market. That may have been smart, because cost of delivering a carton of eggs and some milk would be kill any profit on the order. (Webvan did add a delivery charge for small orders near the end) However, since I still had to run to the store to get one or two items, it was just as easy to make a list of other things I needed as well. This meant there was no compelling reason to use Webvan, since it really didn't cut down significantly on trips to the store.

That's likely a problem for them. Even if they could make a profit or break even or absorb the loss to keep you as a customer for later profits, on the small order with your list added on, the time to deliver from the one big warehouse would still be a negative. What would be needed is for it to be scaled up to enough customers to have distribution centers located closer to customers to make it a rapid delivery service. My grocery store is close because within 2-4 miles of there is enough market, even with 2 or 3 other stores around, to make their profit. The grocery business does require large consumer markets.

4. Convenience - Scheduling delivery was hard - next day service was rarely available, forcing people to plan 3-4 days in advance. It's just as easy to sneak in a trip to the store. In short, Webvan offered no clear advantages to going to the store that made buyers switch to them. Retail stores could even adopt parts of Webvan's model, making their position even weaker. In Atlanta, several stores even offered fax/online/phone ordering - they would take and pack the order for your pickup - one even offered drive through pickup.

That could certainly hurt them. Next day should have been a standard, with special premium emergency delivery for a fee.

Finally, Webvan failed to learn from history. Home delivery of groceries is nothing new \226 there are services that will stock your pantry on a regular schedule. Sometimes there is a reason why a business model hasn\222t been a roaring success \226 their aren\222t enough customers. Scaling up a business model that hasn\222t been successful in the past and wrapping the web around it doesn\222t change the fundamentals.

The web really could be an improvement to the model. Instead of calling on the phone and dealing with a person or a stupid answering machine, the web, if done right, could be better than that. You could see the products in pictures, which is better than not seeing it at all, though not as good as picking it up and making sure it's really what you want. But this particular kind of B2C model can't really replace regular grocery stores any time soon. Pizza and sub deliveries succeed because people are willing to pay the extra amount (and the place in Dallas I get pizza from is especially good) for quick delivery. If home grocery delivery might succeed, it might be the result of growing up from these businesses. But it may never be cheap, so we should not expect it to take over.

I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.

Same here. Isn't it ironic that people that buy gibberish have so much of the cash to flow out?

Re:Webvan

[Tackhead]

> You can ski down their stock price chart!

Sure, if you can hack double-black-diamond slopes ;-)

Re:Webvan

[Cuthalion]

I would worry that they would be able to keep it up

I was a regular webvan customer (there's no real close grocery store, and I don't have/want a car). I did worry that they'd be able to keep it up. But that didn't really affect my day to day shopping through them - get the convenience while you can - it's not like you're signing an exclusivity contract with them or anything.

Did they have a means for you to add on to your order if it was still N hours before delivery?

Yes, you could change your order before.. I think it was 8:00p the night before. I think they should have done an N hours before. Or even better - when they print out the order to fill, THEN disallow changes. So you can change it so long as nobody's started working on it.

As for the I need it now market.. A cross between webvan and kozmo would have been perfect.

Re:Webvan

[danger42]

Apparently this topic is out of gas if you mod a post like this to a 3.

Re:Webvan

[greydmiyu]

OTOH for those people who could plan ahead it was a nice convenience to have the groceries delivered. Even better was the ability to shift one's diet rather simply. I am saddened that they are gone and hope someone springs up to replace them with a viable model.

That's really sad

[GreyPoopon]

I can't help but think that a major part of failures of these companies (like priceline and webvan) is mostly related to poor management strategies. It should honestly be possible to make money this way. I, for one, enjoy the convenience of being able to shop by internet and have things delivered to my door. It, obviously, works great for the non-perishable items.

There are plenty of surviving home-delivery services out there that either accept a shopping list via the phone, or come to your house and pick it up. Then, they shop for you and deliver your groceries, charging you a premium for the service. I would think that webvan could have struck a deal with the local grocery stores that allowed them to charge a lower premium than the non-web-based services. Most people would still pay the premium to have their shopping done for them. In fact, I know of plenty of satisfied customers from the Atlanta area, before it shut down.

So what's the scoop here? Why are businesses like this having so much trouble? No ENOUGH business? Or just stupid management?

GreyPoopon
--

Re:That's really sad

[JCMay]

My grandparents (who live in East Point, an Atlanta suburb) found WebVan to be quite convenient. Grandpa has macular degeneration and can't see well enough to drive anymore; Grandma has muscular atrophy and doesn't get around much either.

It makes you wonder how the old practice of delivering milk door-to-door worked. I remember as recently as fifteen years ago my grandparents had their milk delivered every morning in glass quart bottles.

Re:That's really sad

[FlyGirl]

WebVan just never chose to use that model. Their whole business plan depended on supplying the goods themselves. Peapod, OTOH, does exactly what you suggest -- buys from local supermarkets and delivers. If the business model you suggest is viable, they should be.

Re:That's really sad

[GreyPoopon]

My grandparents (who live in East Point, an Atlanta suburb) found WebVan to be quite convenient. Grandpa has macular degeneration and can't see well enough to drive anymore; Grandma has muscular atrophy and doesn't get around much either.

Well, they'll now have to use one of the other (non web-based) delivery services. But it'll cost a bit more, probably.

It makes you wonder how the old practice of delivering milk door-to-door worked. I remember as recently as fifteen years ago my grandparents had their milk delivered every morning in glass quart bottles.

This probably worked because the dairy was local. One of the reasons you don't see it much today is because local dairy farms are rare now. They have collapsed into just a few massive dairy farms. Based on what I'm reading, I think this is where Webvan screwed up. They tried to build huge distribution centers, and then ship the goods eighty or more miles to individual customers. Imagine what it would cost to handle such shipping with just a few hours turnaround time. They'd have probably been better off if they'd partnered with local grocery stores, and then hired local drivers to shop and drop off the goods. Since most grocery stores now have their inventory computerized, it should theoretically be possible to partner with an online service -- but they'll have to do a lot better job of keeping their inventory clean.

GreyPoopon
--

Re:That's really sad

[thesparkle]

In our area, both of the online grocers pulled out last fall. The problem? Too wide of a delivery area.

They had to build a big warehouse to store products and then needed a fleet of vehicles to deliver goods. Gas prices went up and added to costs, changing economy (remember, most of the early adapters and users of online services were those most affected by the downturn in the tech market) and dried up VC money to fuel operations. Finally, because there were three or more of these services out there nationally, I believe they overextended themselves to gain marketshare - therefore dooming themselves in the process. There was not a steady group of customers to support the industry.

It is really too bad. It seems like such a simple and successful idea. I have a feeling it is going to be back in the near future.

Re:That's really sad

[Trekologer]

The problem is economies of scale. In order for these companies to make money, they need to be big. The need to push volume, just like a brick-and-mortar supermarket does. This is a problem with a lot of "dot.com" startups. They start out too big. Its like opening a chain of 100 small shops plus the infrastructure to support them. You need to start small and then work up to a larger operation, not start big and hope to attract enough customers to keep you afloat.

Re:That's really sad

[grytpype]

Milk delivery worked because everyone got their milk delivered back then, almost every day, and there were only a handful of products. You could load up your milk truck with your limited product selection, then drive down the street and make delivery after delivery, day in and day out. You did not have to pick, pack, and ship to bunch of random customers.

Re:That's really sad

[feorlen]

I liked Webvan, but after a few months stopped using them. I don't buy a lot of packaged food, and when they started upping the minimum free delivery amount, even monthly shopping couldn't come up with enough, despite using them to get my $45 transit pass. When I found someplace else for that, the incentive went away entirely. I liked it because I had just bought a house in a neighborhood with no local supermarket. Most delivery services do not come to my inner-city neighborhood, although this is changing.

The grocery market runs on almost no margin, and consumers are very price-conscious. People regularly go to several stores on a weekly shopping tour to get the lowest price on as many items as possible (despite the time and effort and gas involved.) Even my socially conscious affluent organic-food-eating neighbors have the choice of a farmers market, large chain supermarket and good-sized co-op within ten miles, and those are just the stores with large selections of, or exclusively carry, organic items. They regularly go to all of them. Value-added stuff has to be pretty damn good to even get anyone's attention, and there were still not enough takers to make it viable.

They did try to group deliveries, but they didn't seem to do a good job. My development was at one point getting nearly a dozen deliveries a week, but attempts to find out how to consolidate that into maybe two or three went nowhere. All you got was that little icon saying "In your neighborhood!" on the schedule, whatever that meant. I think it meant they were in Dekalb county, myself.

And transportation kills them. Here in Atlanta they were running their entire operation out of a warehouse in Suwanee, on the edge of the metro area.

Yes, land costs were lower, but it takes 45 minutes to drive to my area from there, and that is with absolutely no traffic. Also, they had to pay a lot to get employees, because the largest group of low-wage, low-skill employees are in the city and have no cars. Low-wage employees cannot afford to live in the northern suburbs, and you can be sure all those soccer moms weren't going to have their precious affluent offspring working in warehouses packing meat.

They did run busses from the train to their facility, but even so that is pushing a two-hour commute for the typical line employee from South Fulton or Dekalb. People will do it, but it has to be worth it.

They are building a Publix across the street from me here in East Lake. I can't wait. Publix is a large regional chain based in Florida and now one of the big players in the Atlanta market, despite being here only about ten years. I like their stores, and they are bringing them back to the city now that non-poor people are starting to live there again. I shopped with them for decades in Florida and it will be nice to have one within walking distance again.

They have announced some kind of Internet shopping arrangement, but I don't have any details. I think the whole Webvan thing has them scared, as well it should. I would be happy if they would package up my order and have it ready for me to pick up; if they can accurately fill the order, that right there would be a major improvement.

Re:That's really sad

[Coward, Anonymous]

My grandparents (who live in East Point, an Atlanta suburb) found WebVan to be quite convenient.

Since they live near Atlanta, they can probably order groceries online from ingles2go.com. If you don't know, Ingles is a grocery store chain and have an advantage over webvan in that they already have warehouses and stores set up which are profitable so they don't need to make enough in deliveries to cover the warehouse costs, just enough to cover the extra employee costs.

Re:That's really sad

[JCMay]

Well, they'll now have to use one of the other (non web-based) delivery services. But it'll cost a bit more, probably.

Yeah, it's called their daughters. My mother and her younger sister do pretty much all their shopping for them. It's fortunate that most of the family is so convenient; I'm the farthest one away: about 500 miles.

I agree about WebVan needed a better system. I was not aware of their internal structure; I'd think that large chains of grocery stores like Publix, Kroger, Big Star or whatever, could be talked into this kind of thing.

Eighty miles is a very long distance to cover with a delivery truck, anyway. How far apart are UPS centers? Post Offices? That's the delivery radius they should have shot for.

Re:That's really sad

[jrp2]

you can be sure all those soccer moms weren't going to have their precious affluent offspring working in warehouses packing meat.

Good analysis, but I disagree with this point. I grew up in an affluent area north of Chicago. Almost everyone I knew worked as a teenager. We cut lawns, shoveled snow, worked at gas stations, delivered groceries, ot whatever. Most of my friends parents were executives of some sort, but it was not only "OK" to work, it was pretty much expected if you are 16 or older, the harder the labor the better.

I now live on the northwest side of Chicago, decidedly middle-class. Despite there being dozens of teenage kids in the neighborhood, I can't find one interested in cutting my lawn (I travel a lot and often let it go too long), and it is a tiny lot to cut and I was willing to pay good money. A friend who runs a local 7-11 kind of place has a bitch of a time getting good part-time help.

I thought "maybe it is the damn spoiled kids of the '90s/'00s". Nope, not the case. My parents, and friends who live 10 miles north of me still have no problem finding some rich kid to cut their lawn, work in their stores, etc. I think it is a "teach your kid the value of a buck and good work ethic before they get access to the trust fund" thing. Basically, I disagree with your generalization. Maybe it is different in Atlanta. If they put a Webvan warehouse in the north suburbs of Chicago there would be a constant supply of rich kids lining up to work.

Re:That's really sad

[feorlen]

There are jobs to be had, but they are mostly not really near residential areas. Yes, the closest major residential areas to the Webvan facility are full of yuppies with rich kids, but they are miles away. The new mall that some developer built in a former pine forest is having the same problem. Of the local folks, as soon as they turn 18, they are working construction or at the chicken plant. And there aren't that many teenage newspaper delivery folks anymore, either, it has been taken over by adults who drive their now longer routes.

From what I have seen around here, teens work at the local grocery or fast food place, but don't travel far. And even then they are often competing with adults for the same jobs. Those adults are motivated to travel further and longer, particularly if the job is transit-accessible. I have seen people drive an hour to work the night shift at a gas station, or two hours by transit to a grocery store.

Teenagers, or at least the live at home variety, seem to be a minor part of the job market here. The largest pool of low-wage workers by far are adults, or at least older teens, trying to support themselves or their families. They have a strong incentive to travel further and longer for even a bad job (which is probably not looking for part-time workers, anyway.)

Re:That's really sad

[Doobian Coedifier]

Case in point: Kozmo.com. I live in Seattle, one of Kozmo's start-up cities. I used Kozmo from the beginning til the end. In the beginning, they delivered rentals, and snacks. Then came reheatable meals. Then you could buy cds. and books. and houseware. And $5k watches. Kozmo wasn't killed off by a bad market. Kozmo over-expanded so much that it was stretched too thin to survive. This is what happens when people with no idea about business models run companies.

Doobian

WebVan has been doomed

[Rurik]

It looks like WebVan has been doomed to failure for months, thanks to their CEO (who gets out with a measly $375k a year).

http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/fc/phparchives/sear ch.php?search=webvan

Who cares?

[briggsb]

Who can stop to think about WebVan and other grocery delivery sites when my favorite sites are running out of cash?

But seriously I just read in the Economist how Tesco is teaming with Safeway to build a profitable grocery delivery service. It's based on picking the groceries out of existing stores and not expensive new warehouses. It's been very successful (profitable) in Britain. Unfortunately the article requires a paid online subscription to the magazine, but it shows there is hope.

Re:Who cares?

[Mtgman]

My local grocery chain has done something like this. There was a start-up called GroceryWorks.com which was bought by the chain and they've done fairly well. They have reasonable prices and since they're affiliated with the grocery store, they process the orders at the store and all the driver has to do is pick them up and deliver them. I see them pull into stores all the time. They're down at the moment for a site re-design, but they're going to be adding even more products and selections when they come back up. They're also going to work out a deal with Safeway and Tesco(my guess is this won't affect me, Safeway pulled out of my area years ago).

My wife and I don't use GroceryWorks because we're bargain shoppers and they don't serve the private-label brands(probably not enough of a profit margin on them). Plus they recently opened a new store near us which has a built-in supervised playroom for the children with CCTV monitors throught the store so we can keep an eye on the kids while we shop. Very nice and the kids love it. But the GroceryWorks service seems to do fine and I know several people, mostly soccer moms who are always running here and there and don't have time to shop, who use the services and are thrilled with them. They even take coupons and have free delivery after a certain price threshold is met.

Steven

Works in the UK

[Stephen]

In the UK, Tesco has made an enormous success out of grocery home delivery. In fact, so successful that it's about to expand into the US under the Safeway mark.

The key to Tesco's success is twofold. First, it's already a well-known brand -- it's our largest supermarket chain. And secondly, it distributes the goods from existing stores, so no extra warehouses etc. to build. (Our second largest supermarket chain, Sainsbury's, tried and failed to make the warehouse model work.)

Re:Works in the UK

[artemis67]

And secondly, it distributes the goods from existing stores, so no extra warehouses etc. to build.

Actually, building warehouses was one of the strengths of Webvan, believe it or not. Because they only did home delivery, they could find the cheapest land in the area to service the entire city. I guarantee that Safeway has a whole heck of a lot more invested in real estate in the markets where it competed with Webvan.

I'm glad to hear Safeway is getting into home delivery. I liked Webvan's concept, and was surprised that they couldn't make it fly. Home delivery won't be Safeway's primary business, so they can take time to build it right.

Re:Works in the UK

[TikkaMassala]

But surely the chepest land is going to be the stuff miles away from anyone, which adds to the running costs of the vehicles. They were on a loser to begin with.

Re:Works in the UK

[Ambush]

Sounds exactly like Quixtar in the U.S or A2K in Oz. ie; (1) well known brand - goodwill is a company's most valuable asset, and (2) existing warehouses. Of course there is (3) completely debt-free.

You can't call 25,000,000+ hits per day a failure.

Re:Works in the UK

[artemis67]

But surely the chepest land is going to be the stuff miles away from anyone, which adds to the running costs of the vehicles. They were on a loser to begin with.

Not necessarily. Besides, is Safeway going to be offering home delivery from all their stores? That means buying at least one van for each store in a given market...believe me, gas is cheaper.

Re:Works in the UK

[artemis67]

You can't call 25,000,000+ hits per day a failure.

Yeah, but of all the hits that Quixtar gets, how many of them aren't already Amway representatives? Very few, I'd say, because Amway's prices aren't competitive with the rest of the market.

Re:Works in the UK

[Joe Decker]

Actually, building warehouses was one of the strengths of Webvan, believe it or not. Because they only did home delivery, they could find the cheapest land in the area to service the entire city. I guarantee that Safeway has a whole heck of a lot more invested in real estate in the markets where it competed with Webvan.

Only having to buy cheap real-estate is still not a strength, it's just a smaller weakness. Safeway already has the real estate purchased. So there's no additional investment in real estate (at least while the delivery remains a small part of their business.) And they already have their distribution system in place. It's a lot less of a business to get up and running, it will cost Safeway a lot less additional captial to get going than Webvan burnt through. It's all about return on invested capital, man.

--Joe

Good thing

[Alessandor]

http://ah-thuisservice.ah.nl/hss/shop is still up.

Don't put much hope in Peapod...

[D'Arque Bishop]

... because their operational area is smaller than it used to be.

If you look at the listings of the areas they service on their webpage, you'll notice Houston, TX is not listed. They used to deliver groceries for Randall's (a local grocery chain now owned by Safeway) customers here up until a year or two ago. I don't know whether it was their being bought by Safeway or lack of interest (most likely the latter, because they haven't brought in anything to replace it), but they announced that they were dumping the program, and that was the last we heard of it. Until this story ran, I had assumed Peapod had gone out of business. *shrug*

In short, Peapod seems to be following the same trend as the other two, or at least suffering somewhat due to lack of interest in markets...

Just my $.02...

Re:Don't put much hope in Peapod...

[jrp2]

... because their operational area is smaller than it used to be.

That may very well be their saving grace. One common thread amongst the dot-bombs were their management's thirst for rapid expansion. Most got themselves so deeply in debt the interest was eating up any profits, and the rapid growth caused them to lose focus and things get out of hand quickly.

From what I understand Peapod recognized that as they were feverishly expanding, contracted a bit and set themselves on a much more sane growth plan. Hopefully it works.

A lesser alternative

[daniel_isaacs]

I never lived in an area Webvan serviced. And I'm not home all that much, and would hate to have my Mint Choc. Chip sitting on the porch for a few hours.

A service that a few of the grocers are now offering is an ExpressLane. You give them a list, and 4 hours notice, and they'll get all the stuff, bag it, and have it waiting for you. They even have a special checkout line. There is generally a $5 service fee, but you can do 30 minutes worth of shopping in 5 minutes. And you just stop by on your way back home from work. Minimal alteration of your daily activities.

As an added bonus, at least where I live, I get to say I went to Harris Teeter. And I really like saying "Teeter"

Re:A lesser alternative

[feorlen]

>As an added bonus, at least where I live, I get >to say I went to Harris Teeter. And I really like >saying "Teeter"

You must not live in Atlanta, then. I would like to know what is going to happen to the big gaping unfinished now-owned-by-Kroger hole in the new shopping center across from my office...

Peapod learned their lesson early on.

[Snowfox]

Peapod learned their lesson early on. They used to be driven by customer service, bending over to ensure that the customer was happy. The shopper would call if an item was out of stock, and they'd suggest alternatives. The drivers would carry items to your kitchen. It was a pretty nice, relaxed kind of service.

They quickly figured out that service costs money, and did a SprintPCS-style turnaround. (If you've been a customer for more than a year and have tried dealing with customer support, you know exactly what I mean.) They figured out that they could serve more people more quickly if they dropped all but the base required service. Now, drivers are instructed to deposit items just inside the door and scram, excepting special circumstance. In their larger markets, they no longer shop a large grocery store, but a little warehouse which usually only contains a small subset of the items which are listed on their web site, which means that you typically won't get a substantial number of things you ordered, requiring you to head on down to the grocery yourself. The "shoppers" (I'm unsure of the new title) are not only no longer instructed to contact customers, but no longer allowed. They're timed on how long they have to complete each order, which is a fraction of the time previously alotted.

I was still a Peapod user throughout the changeover, and orders went from being typically 95%+ fulfilled to around 50-60%, with absolutely nothing included that you wouldn't see in the main 3 aisles of your typical grocer. Peapod's response to comments on the site and service and notes about errors on the web site went from personal responses to "Thank you for your idea, little man. Please be placated by the following runaround," and defensive form letters stating that they were in no way legally responsible for any errors on the site, and "please contact this number to be run around in circles by someone with vapid marketroid scripts until you give up if you've got something that you foolishly think needs fixing."

It's unfortunate. Peapod used to be a pretty nice service, but I can't see using it anymore unless you've got really generic tastes, are disabled, or are somehow incapable of shopping for yourself.

Now - I tried WebVan a few times. They continued to take their time, knocking themselves out to make everyone happy. They really never got to the point of optimizing customer service out of their operation.

Re:Peapod learned their lesson early on.

[CharlieG]

Gee,
I tried Peapod about 2 years ago, and got the same service you now get. I placed my first order, and it was only 40% complete. They would not even bring the groceries INSIDE, but left them on the front porch.

It was my first and last order

Re:Peapod learned their lesson early on.

[Nemix]

I stopped using Peapod the day they delivered rancid meat to my door. It had expired (per the label) weeks before.

Publix Direct

[MilesDavisFan]

Here in the south, a very successful retail grocer is about to venture into the web based grocery delivery realm. http://www.publixdirect.com A strong company who has pledged quite a bit o' capital to make it work.

Might be one reason they died

[AtariAmarok]

You never heard of them; I never heard of them.... until their business obituary appeared. Maybe if we had heard of them back when they were actually in business, they might have had a better chance.

I hear of a huge number of companies, but never heard of this one.

Re:Works in Boston too

[Lizard_King]

We have a service called HomeRuns that seems pretty successful here in Boston. I can't attest to their business model and how it differs from WebVan, but every day it seems that I have to dodge their army of delivery trucks on my bike.

Who needs Webvan when you have...

[V'alien]

Papa Johns? I mean, comon we're all IT geeks right? Just a little Dr. Pepper + PJ Pizza. And you can even order it online. :)

:)

I'm Curious...

[Greyfox]

Would you pay a higher premium for better customer service? How much of a higher premium would you be willing to consider?

Re:I'm Curious...

[Snowfox]

Would you pay a higher premium for better customer service? How much of a higher premium would you be willing to consider?

I know I would, even 20-25% of the order if service was so perfect that I never had to bother with a trip to the grocer again.

I think the average person in the States will allow a salesman to push them down, spit on their face, step on their neck, call them fat and shackle them to the front of a trolley to save 1% though.

Webvan

[Registered Coward v2]

For those unfamiliar with Webvan, is/was an on-line grocery store. You went to their site, ordered your groceries, picked a delivery date/time and your groceries were delivered. They tried to get economies of scale by using a large warehouse to store, pick and ship the orders.

People tried them once, because they were novel, new, and their neighbors mentioned them at parties. That didn't translate into regular, large orders that Webvan needed to be a viable business.

There were a number of things that contributed to their demise:

1. Price - Food is a large part of most budgets, even for the folks Webvan targeted. Discounting is very much part of the grocery business, and Webvan didn't play that game. High margin items, such as soda, were cheaper at stores than on Webvan. The major chains have made shoppers very price sensitive, and Webvan was viewed at the upper end of the price range (whether they were or not is irrelevant), which meant people would use them in a pinch, but still went to the store for their major purchases.

2. Order Size - Grocery shopping is really impulse buying - stores want to get you in with a few specials, to get you to walk through their store. They know you'll see other items you need, adding to the total sale per customer. Even if you go in with a list, you probably would find a few things you needed that you forgot. Webvan, because of its web-based model, wasn't really good at capturing the impulse buy that drives the total sale. Much of the buying is touch and feel - people like to see the meat, fruit, and vegetables and pick what they like. Yes, Webvan would refund the money, but that doesn't do you much good when your trying to make a salad and the vegetables aren't up to your standards (although I must say everything I got from Webvan was fine - but they still need to overcome the feeling that I must see it before I buy it).

3. Advantage over stores - While it was great that Webvan delivered, they completely missed the "I need it now" market. That may have been smart, because cost of delivering a carton of eggs and some milk would be kill any profit on the order. (Webvan did add a delivery charge for small orders near the end) However, since I still had to run to the store to get one or two items, it was just as easy to make a list of other things I needed as well. This meant there was no compelling reason to use Webvan, since it really didn't cut down significantly on trips to the store.

4. Convenience - Scheduling delivery was hard - next day service was rarely available, forcing people to plan 3-4 days in advance. It's just as easy to sneak in a trip to the store.

In short, Webvan offered no clear advantages to going to the store that made buyers switch to them. Retail stores could even adopt parts of Webvan's model, making their position even weaker. In Atlanta, several stores even offered fax/online/phone ordering - they would take and pack the order for your pickup - one even offered drive through pickup.

Finally, Webvan failed to learn from history. Home delivery of groceries is nothing new - there are services that will stock your pantry on a regular schedule. Sometimes there is a reason why a business model hasn't been a roaring success - their aren't enough customers. Scaling up a business model that hasn't been successful in the past and wrapping the web around it doesn't change the fundamentals.

Flawed business model

[jobugeek]

I'm not surprised to see companies such as this fail. I work for a midwestern food wholesaler and our company is struggling somewhat due to gas prices and tighter compeition. Having to succeed while doing so with smaller orders and thinner margins just doesn't seem feasible.

Not hard to understand

[mac123]

When you sell groceries (or anything else) for less than you buy them for, you will not be able to stay in business indefinitely.

Why does the dot-bom industry think that the standard laws of business (like profit) don't apply to them?

Does anyone remember when people started companies by bootstrapping (start small....grow over time)?

Re:Not hard to understand

[grytpype]

>Why does the dot-bom industry think that the standard laws of business (like profit) don't apply to them?

I think they know now that it does.

Re:My favorite comment

[Registered Coward v2]

What today's teenagers don't realize is that all the cash that's flowing from their parent's pockets and being converetd into Nintendos, clothes, records, and all the other stuff is just a short term loan. We'll get it all back, with interest, when their "new-new economy" companies fail.

Yes, old age and treachery will overcome youth and exuberence once again.

banner ads still running

[paulschreiber]

I was just checking yahoo mail and saw a WebVan banner ad.

Paul

We placed an order yesterday...

[cmeans]

there were no indications that the site was soon to die...even got a confirmation email early Sunday afternoon.

Now we're not sure if we should wait or order from Peapod...going to the store is simply not an option :)

---- Sigs are bad for your health ----

Re:We placed an order yesterday...

[jumpingfred]

Webvan web site says no more orders will be delivered and you will not be charged.

What ever happened to that MSN house?

[weave]

I remember seeing some stupid MSN commercial a year or two ago about a bunch of people being locked in a house and had to live totally on stuff purchased over the net. They acted like this was going to be some reality-type series of TV commercials. Since I don't watch TV often, I never saw another.

Are these people still locked up in the house? Maybe they better get rescued cause it looks like they are all going to starve to death now!

Re:What ever happened to that MSN house?

[SuperguyA1]

kind of gives a sick and sadistic twist to
"Where do you want to go today?"

Re:What ever happened to that MSN house?

[blair1q]

The "MSN House" thing was a gag. A fake. An act. It wasn't really intended even to look real. The people were acting (badly). They were using a script. It was a commercial mini-film from the outset. Parody. Just parody.

And I'll echo what someone else said. "Billions of dollars and this is what they come up with?" I'm more than satisfied that they canned it without letting it bottom out.

I have the same problem with Intel advertising, although lately they're smart enough to pawn the creativity aspect off to someone who's clearly creative, i.e., the Blue Man Group. It's still got nothing to do with CPUs, but at least it's more entertaining than embarassing to watch.

--Blair

Re:What ever happened to that MSN house?

[crucini]

I feel uncomfortable seeing BMG harnessed to sell Intel CPU's. They were a fairly scary sadistic performance art group. Now they seem like harmless Disney characters.

Re:What ever happened to that MSN house?

[blair1q]

The price of Fame.

You do know that Pee Wee's Playhouse started in the art theaters of San Francisco, don't you?

There's some old tape of one of those original stage shows (featuring Phil Hartman as Cap'n Bill or Sailor Dan or something; he's on the make now that he's on dry land, and he's not being too choosy) that'll clue you into the continuing subversion of the Saturday Morning version.

The BMG's aren't exactly harmless in their Intel commercials, either. Launching one against a wall; clocking him with the rotating exclamation point, etc.

--Blair

I expected this...

[drnomad]

I heard it didnt' go too well with WebVan.com...
--

Home delivery in the UK

[Bowdie]

I use Tesco's home delivery service, and it's great, it's been nearly a year since I set foot in a supermarket, and seeing as how I hate the places, it's well worth the 5UKP it costs for delivery. You don't miss out on the bogof (buy one get one free) offers, and they always urn up well within thier allotted delivery time.

I couldn't be happier with the system the way it is, I do my week's groceries in around ten minutes.

I am not a Tesco employee.

Re:Works in Boston too

[3am]

i live near boston, and i swear that i heard that homeruns was going out of business. given that i see about a million of their trucks in a day, i guess that's not quite true...

ez2get and food.com

[AtariDatacenter]

These seem to be pretty good vehicles for delivery. They have absolutely NO product. They just place your order with a local restauraunt, pick it up, deliever it, and take your cash. Seems to be that they could expand into a generic delivery service with a bit of effort.

Simon Delivers

[lgraba]

In the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis/St. Paul) Simon Delivers ( http://www.simondelivers.com ) still appears to be going strong.

I suspect that for a business of this type, there are any number of ways to fail. The fact that this business failed does not necessarily mean that this particular type of service is unworkable.

Groceries != Profit Margins

[stilwebm]

Did we not all see this one coming? Come on, anyone who's ever taken accounting knows that the margins on groceries are tiny (4%-5% vs the ideal 9%-12% for public corporations). Through in the number of times Webvan almost fell, and it is no surprise that they are closing up shop. What is surprising is that they made it this long.

Canadian version alive and kickin'

[kontakt]

Here in Toronto, we never had Webvan, but we've got a great copycat called Grocery Gateway. These guys are unreal - and let me tell you, it has *nothing* to do with delivering groceries.

For example, their delivery windows are only 1 hour wide - so no mint chocolate chip ice cream sitting on your porch. The drivers (what are they paying these guys!?) are customer service freaks - if they think they're going to be even 1 minute late, they call you and let you know. If you go nuts and tell them they suck (not that I ever did), they calmly ask you to please call the customer service number.

Then the real service shines. The customer service reps are the exact opposite of everything you've every experienced. They are nice, polite and best of all, they give you free groceries. In the case above, my whole order was free, because it arrived 2 minutes after the delivery window I selected.

It makes me wonder what the Webvan experience was like. Not enough repeat customers? What did they charge anyway?

Feed the beast.

Re:Canadian version alive and kickin'

[SuperHeavyg]

Grocery Gateway is the greatest thing ever to happen to my grocery shopping life since the all you can eat olive bars in Lowblaws! I force everybody I know to use their service at least once, and most of them start using it at least 2 times a month. Eveybody is discovering the great glowing joy and peace associated with watching the GG driver carry 36 1.5l bottles of Perrier, 48 Red Caps, and a case of root beer up 5 flights of stairs into my kitchen. If you don't use it now, start! If you don't you are just a slave to the grind. peace, g

Re:Canadian version alive and kickin'

[tb3]

I just skimmed the site and it looks pretty good (beer and wine, delivered, is a plus), but there's no President's Choice stuff! I really miss that in the States. Some of the local stores have a small selection of the PC line, but it's nothing like going to a big Loblaws.

Does Loblaws have a delivery service yet? Do they still have their own bank?

Re:Canadian version alive and kickin'

[jbrw]

The dotcom I used to work for (redundancy - bah!) used to use a specialised office food delivery service - I imagine it was expensive.

Then we moved to Tesco's delivery service. I think delivery used to be free for orders of £50 or more, but even if they were charging £5, it would have been well worth it to get supermarket prices and to have a beefy guy drag all the juice, bottle water and snack treats up the stairs.

I can't immediately find a link, by it's regularly reported that Tesco's online home shopping is the largest web grocer in the world, in terms of turnover.

I've registered for their shopping service, but as my local Tesco is only a few blocks away, it's easier for me to pop down a couple of times a week. They occasionally send me "wish you were here" postcards.

I have amazing brand loyalty to Tesco, which is a bit weird considering they're just a supermarket. I've bought a fair selection of financial products through them.

Oh, and it probably doesn't hurt that they've just listed my site on their ISPs website, next to other sites with budgets ever so slightly larger than mine. :)

Re:Canadian version alive and kickin'

[Lazlo Nibble]

It makes me wonder what the Webvan experience was like. Not enough repeat customers? What did they charge anyway?

The Webvan experience was very customer-service focused, at least at first. We started using Webvan on Oakland in fall '99 or so and loved it; we got near-perfect fill rates, they were almost always on time with deliveries and absolutely always let us know when they were going to run late, etc. Towards the middle of last year, though, they started to mispull items and miss their delivery windows. Then they went from half-hour to one-hour devliery windows and stopped delivering on weekends. We finally stopped using them after they not only failed to deliver an order (it was never even pulled for delivery!) but they didn't even CALL US to let us know what was happening. Some other folks at work had similar problems with them that weekend; I assumed that they has some kind of system meltdown; whatever the cause, though, they completely lost our trust at that point.

All Webvan really had to offer was service; compared to the grocery stores in our area Webvan cost a little more and had a more limited selection, but the small premium was worth it for the time and effort it saved us. Once the service level dropped there was no longer any point in using Webvan.

The delivery people were always friendly and helpful and the meats and produce stayed first-rate until we went back to conventional grocery shopping, so we do miss the experience. I hope someone else moves into the grocery-delivery space someday, 'cause I'd be happy to cut those annoying store visits out of my life again.

Only if you live next door

[Scorchio]

I first tried Tesco's online shopping four years ago. It wasn't available to me then, due to delivery areas, and isn't available to me now for the same reason. I'm only nine miles from the nearest warehouse according to the website, for heaven's sake. If this is the state nationwide, it can only be a minority that can use the service.

Bah. I'll be sticking to the Co-op, then...

Story Title

[assmonkey]

Webvan Out Of Gas - ugh. This reads like a headline you'd see on fc.

I used peapod for a while, then dropped it

[TheGratefulNet]

my biggest gripe was that cold items (milk, ice cream, etc) weren't kept as cold as I like them to be. I'm always rushing home after getting groceries so that I can get the coldies in the fridge in record time. and I always buy the cold stuff last so it doesn't sit while I'm shopping for the rest of the goods.

after a few months of trying peapod (years ago, before they had a Net presence and you had to dial into their modem bank, ONLY) I dropped them.

its good for when you're home sick for extended periods of time (flu season) but other than that, I saw no real savings in time since I still had to go out myself for the cold goods.

--

Orange Crush...

[Temkin]

Well... There goes the only stable supply of orange crush in the SF bay area. Webvan trucked it in from Dallas, TX. The California bottling plants haven't made the stuff in years.

Anyone know of a store that carries it, in the greater SF bay area? I only have 2 bottles left!

Temkin

That ad was a failure.

[AtariAmarok]

I'd not heard of Webvan before, but I had seen that banner before. I always looked at the "shopping cart", but looked away before it ever got to the "Webvan" part of the animation. Now that you point it out to me, I see the Webvan part of the ad.

This banner ad is a failure. They should have had a NON-animated GIF so you'd see the name of the company before you looked away. As it is, I never saw the name of the company.

Simon Delivers in Minnesota is wonderful

[winterstar]

Our family uses Simon Delivers where we live in Minnesota. Ordering groceries from the web is a godsend. It saves tons of time and the selection is much, much larger. I hope Simons does okay because I'd hate to think I had to start going to the grocery store again. *shudders in horror* =)

just curious...

[mikosullivan]

Do they really wear the bowties, green jackets, and hats?

Miko O'Sullivan

WebVan died from bad management

[AlphaOne]

I've used WebVan several times and I thought they had wonderful service. In fact, I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who's used the service and wasn't satisfied.

The problem WebVan had was just atrocious management. I've never worked for WebVan, but it's obvious from how they were doing things that they were doomed from the very beginning.

For instance, they never gave their Bay Area delivery service time to become profitable before expanding into other areas.

As another example, WebVan purchased warehouse space in several locations they didn't service in anticipation of setting up shop there.

I really believe in the idea WebVan had. If properly managed, I think it could be very successful. Now if only I had some capital to start things up with. :)
--

Re:WebVan died from bad management

[President of The US]

For instance, they never gave their Bay Area delivery service time to become profitable before expanding into other areas.

That's exactly it. Webvan had a great service going. The marketing was good, the site was pretty good too.

But greed got in the way. They wanted to be the Microsoft of grocery delivery, and way too fast.

For instance, here in chicago, if one were to open a webvan-type service, but limit it to, say downtown and Lincoln Park (a population-dense, yuppie-laden, fashionable neighborhood of a few square miles), one could do a ton of business in a small area, target your marketing through far less expensive local means, and probably turn a profit fairly quickly.

But that means actually starting a business as 99.99% of businesses start -- small, and grow naturally.
-----------------------

Internet-based grocery delivery can work ..

[cje]

.. if you cut out the middleman.

For this business model to be truly effective, it's going to have to be the stores themselves that take the orders, assemble them, and then deliver them to the customers. A big part of the problem is that these places either have to have their own stock in warehouses (which is problematic for several reasons) or go out to somebody else's brick-and-mortar store and do "custom shopping" (which is not terribly practical.)

On the other hand, if you're the owner of an actual supermarket, a lot of these problems are solved for you. You've got all the items on hand already, and you presumably have a small army of skinny earringed teenage punks (making slightly over minimum wage) at your disposal. So have a couple of them spend their time doing nothing but filling orders placed online. Charge the customer the normal price that they would pay if they were to actually visit the store, and then tack on a surcharge to cover labor, fuel, vehicle maintenance, etc.

A company like Webvan that does nothing but delivery of Internet orders might work in the future, but in the here and now you've got to have some existing infrastructure to make the whole venture viable (and profitable.) As home delivery of groceries becomes more popular (and given people's preoccupation with things that make their lives easier, there is no reason to believe that it won't), it will be easier for these companies to turn a profit.

Re:Internet-based grocery delivery can work ..

[j-beda]

.. if you cut out the middleman.

For this business model to be truly effective, it's going to have to be the stores themselves that take the orders, assemble them, and then deliver them to the customers.

I think that this type of model can be used to set up a network of local stores. Someone external supply the web front end, and the store does all the rest.

This seems to be what The Peachtree Network is doing.

I have not tried them out yet (and with local stores doing the work the service might be quite variable), but plan on using them next year when we move to Peterborough, ON, served by Charlotte Pantry, just down the street from our new house.

If you are not using such a service yet, go check to see if they have a presence in your Canadian or USian postal code. If not, you can send them the contact information for your favourite local grocer and perhaps get service started.

Re:Works in Boston too

[tb3]

Homeruns is bleeding red ink but has managed to outlast Webvan and Peapod in the Boston area by staying private during the meltdown. There's a reasonably up-to-date article from Boston.com here.

I seem to remember them increasing their delivery charges a while ago, and they're still struggling, but they're not out of business yet.

Simple economics.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Surprisingly enough, a company that spent $140 to deliver $100 worth of groceries went under.

Many of the dotcoms (I worked for one, and I speak of what I want through) felt all of the old business models were invalid. Well, the rules bent when new companies were flooded with what seemed to be an unending supply of capital, but when that bubble burst, a lot of folks got bit in the ass. Webvan raised $375million in it's IPO, only to crash 2 weeks later. And this was before the big bubble burst on Wall Street.

Groceries are a tough business. You get maybe a 4% margin on things. It's almost better to put your money in a passbook and draw 2% or 3% at zero risk.

Re:Simple economics.

[Dr. Scott]

Groceries are a tough business. You get maybe a 4% margin on things. It's almost better to put your money in a passbook and draw 2% or 3% at zero risk.

Umm...those aren't comparable. Yes, they net about 4% on that gallon of milk. Fortunately for them, that's not an annual rate. The milk sits in the cooler for what, maybe a week? 4% compounded every week for a year is... yikes, over 700%. Those aren't comparable, either.

Groceries are a tough business. But it's a lot more profitable than passbook savings.

good idea killed by .com madness

[janpod66]

This is pretty sad. Having groceries delivered makes a lot of sense: it saves gas, time, and hassles. And given today's standardized, prepackaged products and nondescript fresh fruits and vegetables, there isn't much point in selecting merchandise yourself anymore anyway.

But it takes time for people to change their habits. If you are a .com that bets on make-it-or-break-it in three years, that's not going to work.

Web ordering of groceries and home delivery should have started locally and in specialty populations: homebound individuals, company groceries, busy upscale single professionals (BUSPs?), people living in Manhattan, etc. Companies can and should make sure every step along the way that they break even. Then, their user populations will naturally tend to expand as more and more people discover the convenience and habits adjust. A tie-in with cheap handhelds for making grocery lists in the kitchen (where the computer normally isn't) would also have helped.

I hope Peapod will be able to stick with it and that others will not be scared away by this. Webvan failed because they wanted to grow too fast; the idea was and is fundamentally sound.

Re:good idea killed by .com madness

[GPLwhore]

This idea has been tried in 50s and it never realy worked all that well, so I doubt we are talking here only about "habits" ...

Re:good idea killed by .com madness

[janpod66]

Well, it worked before the 50's because many people didn't have cars. In the 50's, you had stay-at-home wives with cars and lots of time (if I may oversimplify), comparatively little congestion, and cheap gas. So, you didn't need home delivery. In the 00's, we have lots busy two job couples with no time for anything, expensive gas, and very congested highways. So, what didn't make much sense in the 50's may well make sense again.

In Minnesota.. there's simon delivers..

[miradu2000]

In the twin cities, (Minnesota, USA), we have a company called Simon Delivers, that's doing extrodinaryly well. All my friends use them, and grocery's are easy as ever. (They have a 1000+ person waiting list ) The thing about simon though it th at they are NOT ON DEMAND. You go online, buy your grocerys, and than at your schdeuled time they come and give you your grocerys. IT's really cool, and so far it's worked for them. http://www.simondelivers.com And no, I do not work for them, I jsut think it's really cool. Here in MN it works. HA!

Re:Webvan?

[4444444]

In this age of supercompetition between .coms, you would think that the only way you would have even the slightest chance is to advertise.
Thats exactly how all the other dot coms whent out of biz they spent all thier money on "branding" remember million dollar superbowl comercials?. The ad industry made a fortune telling the dot coms they had to advertise advertise advertise when what they really needed to do was watch the bottom line and focus on their product or service

Re:Part of their problem

[Blue Aardvark House]

Really? We accept credit cards at my business and we get the funds in 2 to 3 business days.

I don't think that was the problem. Seems like razor-thin margins to me. It costs a lot to run a van fleet. Items like gas, insurance, maintenance add up quickly.

Business model and management not the same thing

[Infonaut]

I'm giving up hope on ultra-cheap delivery by web as a business model to support my retirement fund.

That's just it - so many dot-com businesses confused the ordering mechanism ("Yay! I can use the Internet to order products!") with a business model.

But a real business model is focused on how you can extract profit from what ever endeavor your business is engaged in. Profitability is the bottom line in any business, whether it's a 7-Eleven, a fertilizer plant, or a game company.

So many dot-com outfits bit the dust because they missed this Business 101 fact. Sure, some of them had bad management, but who had any management experience in the world of online commerce before there was any online commerce?

My guess is that now that the first wave of front-runners has died off, the hardier surviors are going to continue to grow and thrive, but at a sustainable, more realistic pace. All those "stupid" managers will be a lot more experienced, and like any industry, the world of online commerce will mature as effective practices become more well-known.

copycats like this always fail

[Lumpy]

Schwans has been around for decades, they deliver to your door, and if you want to add/change something at the last second (I.E. when the man is standing in your doorway with your food) you can easily. Granted it's only frozen products but then what the heck are geeks doing eating fresh veggies? If you want to create a web-groceries store.. let me send my order and allow me to stop and load/pick it up on my way home. (Meijer stores... you listening??? I'd pay a 10% charge for their employees to collect my shopping list for me so I dont have to wait in line, listen to that woman with 80 children scream at them for doing nothing, and smell that person in front of the line arguing about 12 cents on the recipt.

Re:copycats like this always fail

[GPLwhore]

One day you will become like that person arguing about 12 cents etc ..
It is only question of time and a bit of bad luck.

Quality vs Convenience

[why-is-it]

"Much of the buying is touch and feel - people like to see the meat, fruit, and vegetables and pick what they like"

Absolutely! When I go to the grocery store, some of the produce they have is simply unacceptable. None of it is exactly cheap, and I am not interested in bruised or over-ripe fruits and vegetables. Same for meat. I want to be certain that I pick out a good cut.

That is probably the main reason I have never ordered groceries on-line. If there was a "premium" grocer who would only stock top-grade stuff, I might consider it.

Sure, I have no problem purchasing books, cds, and dvds on-line, but *I* want to pick out the perishable goods myself.

Criminal CEO's Golden Parachute

[ErnstKompressor]

The most upsetting thing about the demise of Home Grocer/Webvan is the fact that the CEO they hired and fired within the last year(not the present CEO), who managed to burn through all the money they had and who made sure that Home Grocer(the more efficient model of the two) was forgotten after it was swallowed up, will still receive close to $30,000 a month -- FOREVER! -- seriously...though I wonder who will be cutting the checks.
Maybe them closing shop is a tricky way to forfeit their obligation to this scumbag suit. It seem like $360,000 would be a decent sum to save each year -- a worthwhile excuse to go through bankruptcy proceedings.
E.K.

Re:Criminal CEO's Golden Parachute

[small_dick]

Not really forever, but pretty close.

Shaheen was guaranteed $375,000 a year for the rest of his life, and if he dies it transfers to his wife.

Sometimes when I read about things like this, I wonder what the hell happened to America. It used to be if you had a good idea, and the enthusiasm to get the job done, you would succeed.

Now you need to hire-a-name, pay them an insane amount of money to attach themselves to your company (like somekind of frickin' alien creature) so they can bleed it dry.

More and more, it looks like the dot commies were nothing but a shelter for organized crime -- like the insurance companies and savings & loans of days gone by (and today, to some extent).

Sadness for depths to which America has descended! She seems like that young and beautiful runaway girl, confused and fearful, eyeing the pimps and their limosines and wondering whether to cross over into that terrible darkness. Let's hope she regains her strength and spirit and returns to the straight and true path!



Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.

Re:Criminal CEO's Golden Parachute

[jumpingfred]

You do know why he got such a huge parachute don't you? It was because he had to leave his previous job at which he was really set. He would not have left without a guarentee like that.

Re:Criminal CEO's Golden Parachute

[small_dick]

Assuming it was a good idea initially, which is a strong assumption, there would be no reason to bring in 'a name' to make it work.

A lot of company bring in 'big names' in much the way hollywood brings in a big name ... to get 'a buzz' going.

The implication in all of this ... that movies can be made better by adding 'a big name' or that a corporation can be more successful by similar tactics ... I think the whole argument for doing it is specious at best.

A good movie with good actors ought to succeed, a good product with good management ought also to succeed.

When it requires some PR 'buzz blitz' to make things succeed ... a campaign of talking heads and name-droppers ... that's a questionable direction for a society to take.


Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.

Re:Criminal CEO's Golden Parachute

[crashdavis]

Actually, the news article said that Shaheen would have to line up alongside all the other unsecured creditors and probably had no hope of getting any money out of it.

(They have about $30 million I believe in assets, and something like 80-90 million in debts. Shaheen is part of the 80-90 million.)

Crash

darwin eats stupid business models

[nanojath]

The baseline stupidity involved here is the belief that somehow the economic of product delivery would be significantly affected by a better ordering interface, which is the only innovation the internet provides in this instance.

If there were a sufficient market for home grocery delivery BEYOND the established need that is met by conventional grocery stores employing an interesting technological marvel known as the AUDIO TELEPHONE then grocery chains would have been developing it well in advance of the internet. Instead, if you look at the trends in groceries you see things going the other direction - less groceries offering delivery service, bagging service, even self-serve check-out is on the rise. A service where someone collects and fills your order and then delivers it to your door is clearly on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from this trend. So what is it these internet entrpeneurs know that companies that have been in the grocery business for decades don't? NOTHING. Because they're fucking morons.

And yeah, yeah, you can say, hey, 'Jath, is it worth getting so up in arms about another stupid, moronic, idiotic internet business model that failed? Where do you think the tech stock meltdown that helped precipitate the current economic downturn came from? Every worthwhile tech business that took a beating in the market ought to send webvan.com an e-mail that says "thanks for ruining it for real companies, assholes." Nothing like a little stupidity and greed.

Oh... The Days

[istartedi]

Oh... The Days.

Pimply faced freshman dropping out for 50k entry level jobs. "B2C petstore play"s. The first day pop. Office casual. The company game room. NASDAQ 5000. Exasperated recruiters. Hailing the new economy. Planes trailing banners with ads for jobs. BMW or Mercedes offered as choice at hire-time. Renaming stadiums. Venture capitalists. Pre-IPO stock options. Pundits predicting Dow 30000. Bashing the old economy. Lavish parties. Companies like Webvan.

Did I leave anything out?

This sucks.

[sulli]

I was one of those who always used Webvan. I live in SF, where there are lots of corner stores, so I could get things like fresh milk there - I would then order all the staples from Webvan and not have to move my car while they were delivered.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I can't be bothered to shop on price in the grocery store. Who fucking cares if a bag of potato chips is fifty cents off? My time is worth far more than that. Guess not enough people agreed with me.

Plus, their service was always extremely friendly, again unlike at Safeway. Again, I guess not enough customers cared about that.

brick and clicks a better model

[daarz]

The pure play model of Webvan was due to fail, like most of the other ones who tried. Capital costs of the warehouses and of learning the trade weigh too much. Brick and click will work. Either in-house (like Tesco) or through a partnership of a brick and mortar grocer with an asp, like where I shop here in Vancouver: it's a tiny grocer (Stong's) that gives awesome service thanks to software from Peachtree Network. I know the same asp powers Wakefern in NY State, IGA in Quebec, and a few others in North America and Europe.

The dot-com-guy?

[peter303]

Do you mean the dotcomguy?
The experiment managed to last the whole year 2000
as the InterNet business crashed and burned.
See http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,40940,00. html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/computing/01/02/dot co mguy.update/

Re:The dot-com-guy?

[weave]

Do you mean the dotcomguy?

Nope. Same idea, but a houseful (about 4 or 5) of adults who were supposed to just live on stuff purchased over the net. Kind of typical of Microsoft, take someone else's idea, rework it, and pass it off as original! :-)

National vs Regional

[Silver A]

The fundamental problem with webvan seems to be that they tried to expand too fast and didn't make enough money to support the expansion. But why did they try to expand too fast? Because the internet is worldwide. There was (and maybe still is) a belief that if you're on the 'net, *everyone* can see you, so you'd better be able to service everyone. Or at least everyone in the United States.

For some sorts of operations, that makes sense. If my product is an electronic download, anyone in the world who has an internet connection can receive my product. For lightweight, non-perishable products, the postal service or its competitors can provide delivery cheaply enough that people won't squawk over the price of delivery. For groceries, delivery is expensive, and the more areas you cover, the more it costs.

So Webvan tried to become a national player, when no grocery chain had succeeded yet, instead of concentrating on capturing enough of the Bay Area market to make a profit. So it's gone tits-up.com. Oh well.

Here's how Webvan should have worked:

[Galvatron]

They should have planned to make a profit nearly instantly. The key is to start small, and make a profit. Then, when you've proven your model, you spend more of that venture capital to expand to a new market. Prove the new market, then expand again.

Instead, what they did was they spent half their money going into EVERY market, and then the rest ran out before they had a chance to iron out the kinks in their business plan. Web based ordering CAN work, the question is how. Maybe it's just a niche market, requiring that people come to a physical location to pick up their orders or a gross markup for delivery. I'm sure there are those out there (the disabled, for example) who would be willing to pay for that kind of service. Alternatively, maybe Webvan really WAS on the right track, and would have gathered a large enough customer base by next year to be profitable, as they claimed right up to the end.

However, Webvan will never know because they moronically spent all their money in the first (and, as it turns out, only) two years of their existence. It's not like web-based ordering is a natural monopoly, where only the first person to establish themselves will make money. In the long run, whoever can compete best on price and service is who will rule the market. So, there was no reason for Webvan's frenzied growth, because the markets would never be locked off to them.

Now, there's a few supermarkets going about this the right way. They're taking tentative steps toward web based ordering, feeling out the market. Eventually, one of them will hit on the winning combination, and the rest will shortly follow. I, for one, am not sad to see Webvan go.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

Re:Here's how Webvan should have worked:

[crashdavis]

I agree that conserving their cash should have been job 1. However, in order to win over their customers they needed to do a few things besides just survive:

a) Make the ordering process SHORTER. It takes almost as long to place a lengthy grocery order on a website as it does to just go shopping.

b) Be smarter about item selection (see "a" above). The value I add to my wife when I go shopping is she says "We need milk, eggs and cheese" and I know she means "a gallon of Peveley 2% milk with the blue top, a dozen generic brand jumbo eggs and a 24-pack of Kraft American singles". I also know that if there is no 2% milk I can just get 1% and not come home empty handed. NO grocery website has figured out how to do this yet.

c) They have to SAVE a TRIP. If they don't save me a trip, I might as well just go myself. The overhead of driving there, driving back and standing in line is almost the same no matter how many items I buy. My last web order, I got like 20 things, but they forgot the bananas. I can't make banana cream pie without bananas, so I get totally pissed off after having spent an hour ordering everything, giving them all my personal info for the order, and waiting a DAY for delivery that I STILL have to go to the store myself. What if you ordered a pizza from Domino's but they "forgot" the pepperoni and told you to just go to the store and get your own pepperoni? Domino's CEO and WebVan's CEO would be on job search together.

What these guys (like lots of others) lost sight of is that the new experience has to be BETTER than the old experience or people will avoid it. The Internet way had the POTENTIAL of being a better experience, but sadly, their companies' attempts were worse.

Crash

Why deliver?

[creff]

It seems that most of the problems from this business model stem from delivery. If grocers had an online site where you could select the items you want and have them packaged and ready when you get there I would be willing to pay for this service. No more running through gigantic, crowded supermarkets not being able to find what you need.

This also allows for people who want to pick their own meats and veggies to do so. Just put everything else on the online list, run in to get the things you want to pick out, then pay everything at once. The things you want to pick out are usually (conveniently) all at the same side of the store anyway (meats, fruits, veggies, bakery).

I am not disabled and do not need someone to deliver groceries to my house. I just don't want to spend my day shopping. Or for that matter, waiting for a delivery person to show up.

For those in the South East: PublixDirect

[tswinzig]

For those of us down here in the southeast of the US, there really is no Webvan-like grocery service. Why is that? Probably because PublixDirect will be coming soon, and I doubt anyone wants to compete with them.

And while it may sound like a version of unix, Publix is actually the best brick-and-mortar grocery store around these parts. And they are working on their first warehouse for their "online grocer" business as we speak.

Based on how excellent their grocery stores are, I will be very interested to see how a REAL grocer executes this business model.

http://www.publixdirect.com/

HomeRuns rocks

[beland]

I was the Steward for a house of 20 people here is Boston for a few months, and HomeRuns absolutely rocks. They are very reliable, and a heck of a lot easier to use when you are ordering mostly the same items every week, than physically going to the store. Plus, it's so cool to click around on the web and have food appear in your fridge the next day. 8) I was looking forward to the possibility of getting WebVan now and again after I move to California, but alas... Perhaps this GroceryWorks thing will work out, though, considering the nearest supermarket is a Safeway.

Maybe Chapter 11 to duck bad deal with ex-CEO?

[Therin]

Webvan, in what sure looks like a real bonehead move, hired as a CEO a guy from Anderson Consulting and agreed to pay him 375,000 per year even if he was fired.

Maybe with the Chapter 11 filing they can get out of that dumb contract and keep going without the lodestone around their neck?

Current Jobless count is......

[t0qer]

20k from nortel
20k from cisco
20k from selectron
10k? from webvan
2k commerce one
---
72k people that I can count are now competing with me and each other for a job in the bay area. I'm not sure how many of the webvan people have seen the current job market, but it really sucks bad. Most companies are looking for a Knight in shining armor to save them from themselves, they want someone that can do the job of 6 people. I can't count how many interviews i've been on where the person interviewing me pretty much said "we're in deep shit and we're looking for someone to get us out of it."

Sorry to vent, but i've been jobless since January. It's been real tough, I got laid off a week after my house closed escrow and i'm allmost to the point of selling off my computers to keep my house. I just really feel for those people that just got the pinkslip.

--toq

Re:Current Jobless count is......

[t0qer]

Yeah unemployment isn't that bad, I allways wanted to watch all of DBZ series (IM A 28 YEAR OLD CARTOON WATCHER DEAL WITH IT) and it's given me a chance to do that. I've been keeping afloat on that and some under the table consulting work for dirt cheap too. Your too smart to have things candy coated, so let me give you some things to watch out for. You're really gonna find out who your friends are. A small minority of your freinds might turn their backs on you cause it's some primal survival instinct. They see you tackled by a bear they run the other way. Don't let it get you down if it happens, you can allways make new freinds, hell maybe we can go for a beer sometime. Don't trust any temp aganecies. They're all in deep shit right now. Most of them took out payroll loans and are getting hurt now. They'll ask you to come down so they can do a brief 30 minute interview to check out your skills. Don't waste the gas money or time on them. Especially with these current prices. Instead go through the unemployment office, fax out to anything your qualified for in there. Also beware cause the temp agancies will try and trick you into coming down by pretending to be a real company. They just want to check and make sure you look normal, the companies their selling to do care about qualifications, but if you look like an ogre they probably wouldn't let that temp agent send anyone over there again. Start weaning yourself off the money. I'm serious too!! From now on budget what you have left for paying rent, utilities, cut that fat! Fax out to real companies using only real job postings, and don't spam every job a company has availiable either. Fax gives the HR person something real to hold on to, that they can pass aroud quickly without having to print it up. If they want soft copy they wil let you know. Don't get discouraged at this point if the interview process takes a long time. It can feel like your getting jerked around, but thats only cause someone is jerkin the hiring manager around on his staff budget. Most important, don't get mad at your family for getting on your ass about a job if they do. They just care and do not understand the magnitude of the dot com crash. Instead of getting mad with words get mad with facts. Defend yourself with the truth. Merc news, sj chronical, ect all have many articles pertaining to just how many were laid off in the valley. Drive around with them in the afternoon (say 1ish) and say things like "gee look at all the people out on a work day!" and "wow every other house on this block is for sale!" because it's the truth. I see so many people out there everyday wandering like the walking dead. I joined those ranks myself trying to convince myself I was not fired. I went to fry's, shopped till I dropped, took the wife out to the expensive resturaunts. All the stupid stuff i'm telling you not to do now. We should name this day national dot com mourning day, for all the brave soldiers that went out and bravely fought for the common good of geekdom. --toq

peapod already ditched me

[mark_lybarger]

i used peapod each and every week to order my groceries (cols, oh). to my udder dismay, all the sudden, they folded in this area. it had to be the absolute best service around. put your grocery list on line, and then the next day it gets brought to your house. no lines, no screaming kids in the stores, no parking lot hassles, no loading/unloading the minivan. groceries delivered to your door for 25$ per month for unlimited deliveries over 60$! i would probably pay double that now that i'm without service. please peapod, reconsider us in COLS, OH !!!

Sad....

[Kit Cosper]

As a Silly-Con Valley escapee I can say that Webvan was great from a customer perspective. When I was commuting coast-to-coast I could place my order from NC and have it delivered the morning after my arrival back in CA. The customer service people were among the best I have ever dealt with. The products were outstanding (any problems, they would cheerfully refund or replace, your choice.)

So what went wrong? A couple of things, IMHO. As others have mentioned, trying to go too far too fast. Instead of expansion they needed to insinuate themselves into the mentality of the Bay Area. We lived in a nice neighborhood in Saratoga and the only time I ever saw a Webvan truck was parked at my house. When my wife came out to CA she loved Webvan, but like most people going to the grocery store was such a habit she had a hard time sitting down at the computer to order groceries.

IMHO, if Webvan had spent more time and energy converting people to their mode of business we wouldn't be having this discussion. A regional chain around here, Loews Foods, now has a "shopping service" where you order online and pick up at the curb. In some areas they have started offering delivery as well. This will, in all likelyhood, be successful.

--Kit

The .com business model is so over

[lushmore]

Here in San Diego, I've used Webvan on numerous occasions. I found that their service was great; but with just about every order, something was missing, and the perishable items weren't nearly as good quality as I would choose at the grocery store.

The worse-business-model-than-webvan goes to whyrunout.com, which set up shop out here looking to be bought by someone else. They initially were giving out $50 in free groceries over the first four deliveries, would shop at your local grocery store (!), and didn't mark up their prices or charge a delivery fee (!!). I'm surprised they're still around (though they do charge a delivery fee).

A business model that would really work would be to bolt-on a webfront to your local grocery chain so that you could shop online, pay your $5.00 for some teenager to put your order together, and go pick it up. If there was a drive-through window where said teenager would drop the goods in your trunk, so much the better--mom doesn't have to let the kids out of the car. If someone makes money with this model I want a cut.

Rock on, Simon!

[Uncle Squid]

I, too, am a grateful SimonDelivers customer in St. Paul. I'm neither an employee nor a shareholder, though you wouldn't guess it from the way I'm about to start gushing. I will admit that it's in my best interest to help them do well, since I fscking LOVE this service.

A large part of the reason for their waiting list is that they're being careful about rolling out their coverage. A company that offered grocery delivery Way Back When went under largely because they hired a whole bunch of sloppy, lazy drivers who did a lousy job of filling and packing orders. My wife and I did the Dance of Joy (tm) the day they added our ZIP code to their list.

It's true that delivery is not on demand, but that didn't matter for us. The shopping list is in the same spot on the fridge; it's just that the weekly shopping trip is now done in my underwear. I still giggle gleefully when I come home after work to a cooler full of groceries.

Another poster made a point about scheduled delivery services missing out on impulse shopping. That may be true, but I personally prefer to WALK to the corner market for a gallon of milk than to drive out to Grocery Coliseum and wait in the Express (what a fscking joke!) Lane for 20 minutes.

Simon's also done a pretty good job of rolling out his own specials, coupons, and suggestions on the website and the fliers that come with the groceries. In my experience, these are every bit as effective as your normal point-of-sale advertising (and I have the CC receipts to prove it!).

I really believe that for as long as the Bigass Supermarkets continue to employ drooling idiot employees to serve their drooling idiot consumers, I'll be staying as far away as possible.

Please, Simon, I'm begging you: don't screw this up!

Houdini

[fishbonez]

From the NY Times article:
But the company never came close to making money, losing $830 million since its inception. ``We are very proud of what we accomplished,'' Webvan spokesman Bud Grebey said in an interview Monday. ``We do believe we had a brilliant concept. We were just ahead of our time.''

They are proud of the fact that they made $830 million disappear into thin air. Amzingly some of the money magically reappeared in the bank accounts of some of the senior executives.

This is the ultimate job. Lose incredibly amounts of other people's money and still get rich in the process. Where do I send my resume to get this kind of job?

I need to upgrade my fridge now

[WillSeattle]

All my fridge magnets are offline and out of date.

Sidewalk.com, Webvan, and all the dot coms that used to give them away.

If I were a blues singer, I'd write a song:
Since my dot com left me,
I'm feeling all so blue,
Can't order food online nomore,
Or turn my horse to glue.

I got the blues ...
Got them dot com blues ...
From my head down to my shoes
Yes, I got them dot com blues

Can't use my DSL,
My ISPs gone cold,
Can't even order pizza,
It's all just turned to mold

I got the blues ...
Got them dot com blues ...
From my head down to my shoes
Yes, I got them dot com blues

Homeruns

[Kool Moe]

THIS is exactly (well, ok, a big part of) the reason WebVan went out of business, and PeaPod will likely follow...
they went public.
Homeruns has been in the Boston area for, what, three years now? We just got word they've expanded here into Annapolis, MD.
Orders over $125 ($150?) are free. Orders $50 (minimum) to $125 are $5.95.
I think I'd pay $6 to not have to deal with running to the store after work.
As with many companies these days, the rush to make millions via IPO was their ultimate downfall. Being public is very expensive (our company pays $500,000 in various fees for being public, and we employ 25 people. We'd be making a MINT if we weren't public).
Homeruns is doing it right, from what I see. Take yer time, slowly expand, go public when you're already profitable (assuming they will)
KM

President's Choice

[cpeterso]

Isn't President's Choice a Safeway private label brand? That would explain why Grocery Gateway doesn't sell a Safeway brand product.

Re:President's Choice

[tb3]

President's Choice is the Loblaws house brand, orginally started when Dave Nichol was president of Loblaws. It's easily the best house brand available, and the only one I know of that is carried by other retailers. The stuff is so good that some of it is imported into the U.S., but not my favorites, alas.

On the upside...

[artemis67]

George Shaheen, the CEO who bailed after 18 months, had a golden parachute in his contract with Webvan to be compensated $375,000/a year for the rest of his life. Now, I don't fault the guy for negotiating a killer deal when he signed on; and I understand that Webvan had to be very generous when shopping around for a CEO who could save their bacon (so to speak). However, this severance package was clearly over-the-top, and far more than the struggling company could afford to pay. They gambled, they lost. And I guess George will have to go find a job now.

Webvan's mistake? Marketing and PR

[jim_pearson]

Webvan was wonderful. The food quality was phenomenal (better than any "super" market low-grade just-this-side-of-military "produce [or] meat"). The service was great (too great - took too long). The selection was great. For the entire time I used them, I did not set foot inside a Target, supermarket or drugstore. What a relief! No lines, no screaming children, no runnin' all over town on one of my few days off...

Now they're gone.

Why? Not foolish spending, poor planning or poor quality. Marketing and PR. Who did the execs piss off?? They couldn't catch a break.

I never, not once, saw a news report that said, "The food quality's great!" I saw "you can't pick it yourself." But who'd want to? You can pick my produce for me if the pool from which you select is orders of magnitude better than the garbage at the local market.

I didn't see "it comes right to your door, in just a day or two, sparing you the agony of shopping!" I saw, "you can't impulse buy!" So what? Keep a grocery list - let them keep it for you - and plan a day or two in advance. People buy nonrefundable airline tickets 4 weeks in advance to save $100 ferchryssake!

I never saw "what a great idea... here're the revolutionary ways they're trying to make it work." I saw, "grocery stores are a razor-thin profit margin operation. Webvan's gonna fail." Thanks for the self-fulfilling prophecy, y'all.

And let's not even talk about the advertising... great idea squandered by stooopid ads. God ferbid they learn a lesson from (gasp) Apple and launch a catchy, aggressive, interesting (like em or not) campaign.

It's a dark day indeed. Fortunately, I could stand to lose a few pounds (yes, "all the constant sitting and snacking") so the fast that now commences is ok... for a while... I ain't goin' back to [Safeway / albertsons / nobhill / wholefoods / whatever]... guess there's gonna be lots o' takeout.

Webvan, we hardly knew ye'. Hope someone comes to fill the void you left behind.

Don't You Think ...

[Poligraf]

... that what you've described was THE strategy for the entire .com industry?

Unfortunately, they had to behave that stupid; otherwise, they wouldn't be worth 8 bln on the NASDAQ right after the IPO.

It was time when the EXPANSION was worth much more that the PROFIT because no one cared what will happen next.

Hmm...

[CaptTrips]

Webvan Group raised around $320 million from venture capital and when they went IPO (WBVN). You would think a company that generated that much money would be fine right? Well, two major things contributed to their death. 1. They didn't have sound business model in place. Selling groceries on the web is just... bizarre. I'm totally for the ease and convenience of buying things online and while some things work (e.g. DVD, books, video & computer games, music, etc.), groceries are not one of them. 2. They tried to get big too fast. They had over 7 distribution centers in many cities and over 2000 employees. This is how they started. They didn't start out small in one city and build up a loyal customer base. I believe had Webvan stood back and looked at their business structure they would've saw that buying groceries over the web is just too weird for most ordinary folks. Luckily they had a vague company name that had they of restructured their business towards other viable internet-to-home delivery products they could've been successful. Well, they didn't and they died. Nuff said.

----
Capt' Trips

If delivering groceries were profitable...

[ilsa]

If delivering groceries were profitable then Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons and Hooper's Store would still be doing it. This is an example of something that the Internet was supposed to make cheaper, faster, and easier, and it did not work out. The Grocer business is famous for thin margins. Sorry that Webvan is just now finding that out.

Of course repainting all the HomeGrocer trucks and all the various free stuff they gave away (sample bags, delivery, the 3 magnets on my fridge) did not help!

Reminds me of PinkDot -> PDQuick -> PinkDot

[kindbud]

So Los Angeles used to have this cool delivery service called PinkDot. They were overpriced, had surly order takers and even more surly delivery guys (what up with middle east immigrants not knowing about deoderant?). But goddammit they got your shit to you in under a half hour. The delivery fleet was a bunch of rehabilitated pink polka-dotted VW Bugs - the old skool bugs, not the new ones. PinkDot is/was an LA institution, one of the reasons it's so cool to live here. They only stocked 7-11 stuff; you know, sodas, chips, pizza, toothpaste; and they had some deli sandwiches and some pasta dishes. Oh, you could also get your movie rentals, even pr0n, from PinkDot. It's been like that in LA for the past 15 years.

So the dot-com bubble inflated, and last year some VC came along and bought PinkDot, renamed it to PDQuick (YUCK), and announced all kinds of plans to expand nationwide. The next thing to go was the pink-polka-dot bugs. Then delivery times escalated to 45 minutes, then an hour, the selection dwindled, the deli sandwiches went away, and so did the hot pasta dishes.

How does it all end? I bet you can see this one coming: Last month, PDQuick declared bankruptcy and halted operations. For about a day. Luckily, the previous owner of PinkDot - the one who made a mint selling the operation to the VC bubble boys a year earlier - had some cash on hand to buy back his business at a fraction of the price that he was paid for it just a year earlier. PinkDot returns!! Yee haa!! The prices are just as high as before, but now the deliver times are back under a half hour.

Why am I telling this tale, and what does it have to do with Webvan? I dunno, I'm just glad to have my PinkDot back, goddammmit!!

Milk delivery

[Smegma4U]

If you live somewhere near Aurora, IL, you can still get milk delivered in glass bottles from Oberweis dairy. And their ice cream is awesome :-)

Mowing lawns was quaint in the past, but is demeai

[NDPTAL85]

This isn't a work ethic issue. Its a lifestyle issue. Mowing someone's lawn my have been respectable back in the 50's-70's but is no longer so. The reason why you can't find any kids to mow your lawn is two fold. One they already have better jobs. Real jobs. Two its beneath them, as it would be beneath me. Why would I mow your lawn and have everyone see me do that when I could just get a regular job at just about anywhere?

Just cause when you were growing up mowing folks lawns was the "thing to do" doesn't mean its acceptable anymore. And anyway, its just grass. Get one of those robo-mowers that cuts the lawn on its own. They are around $900, set it up, watch it go and drink some lemonade on your porch. :)

Amazon Model Was Only Big Flaw

[doodaddy]

My take on Webvan was simply that they used the Amazon model a little too late. Webvan started a year later than Amazon. At the time, Amazon "proved" you could throw profitability out the window and just go for growth, and investors would still climb on. Then that changed. The change was late enough so Amazon could adjust, but Webvan was still to far from reigning in their over-extended reach.

Otherwise, Webvan seemed great. Their warehouse system, IMO, would be the correct long-term solution. They had a plan similar to Amazon except the started with groceries instead of books. Imagine once they owned the "last mile" of delivery and then would drop off a book, etc!

I live in Atlanta, and while I never got around to using them, all of my, admittedly techie, friends used them regularly and religiously.

Oh well.

Re:Hey

[Apotsy]

The unions for grocery store workers aren't totally gone. The Safeway workers in my area went on strike recently. I think they got their half-cent per hour raise or whatever and went back to work already. Unions can get what they want as long as they aim low.

Re:Mowing lawns was quaint in the past, but is dem

[beanerspace]

Oh yeah, that's right. I keep forgetting. The work ethic is old school. And let's face the reality that all 14 year old boys are as capable as a 14 year veteran of ... let's say a real programming job ?

I guess that's why I see so many hard-working South-American immigrants cutting lawns ... and doing other work our fat, pasty, lard-ass, spoiled teens find beneath them.

Not any more :-(

[artdodge]

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.

Exactly!

[NDPTAL85]

I know you were being sarcastic but you hit it dead on. We need a constant and steady supply of immigrants to do the jobs natural born Americans consider beneath them. Its only natural. And don't worry, the children of those immigrants will be just as snobbish as we are. ;)

And its not that the work ethic is old school. Its what KIND of work does one want to do.