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

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: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.