Slashdot Mirror
Wal-Mart Tests Online Grocery Delivery
fysdt writes "The world's biggest retailer had been rumored to be considering dipping its toe into online grocery delivery for the past few years. The 'Walmart To Go' test allows customers to visit Walmart.com to order groceries and consumables found in a Walmart store and have them delivered to their homes, the spokesman said. Products include fresh produce, meat and seafood, frozen, bakery, baby, over-the-counter pharmacy, household supplies and health and beauty items."
Indeed - I can order online from any of three supermarkets - Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys,
At the moment, I'm unable to drive, as health problems are making it difficult for me
to get my licence. This also means I'm on a severe budget.
Online delivery means I don't have to drag a couple of bags home on the bus every
day or three - it's great!
It also means that with the aid of my freezer, I can eat really quite cheaply indeed.
I base my orders around buy-one-get-one-free, or half-price offers, and am at the
moment shopping around monthly.
One of them even has an online API! http://www.techfortesco.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0
Being able to complete an order at leisure, and to reflect on each purchases value and
calories/... has greatly trimmed my grocery bill and waistline.
I'm in a small village - 6 miles from the nearest town of 40K - no 'fast food' places will deliver.
A food's ability to be delivered depends a lot on how well it handles a 30 minute wait. Pizza is okay luke warm, cold, or re-heated. Chinese isn't so great cold, but you can insulate it pretty well and keep it warm enough for arrival, same with Indian food (both reheat okay). Cold sandwiches/subs deliver fine too.
A burger, on the other hand, gets soggy, cold, and disgusting by the 30 minute mark. Fries are similar. These days most fast food places have pretty fast turnover of their fries, and within about 15 minutes of them being left out they're a pale imitation of how good they taste when you first get them. Tex-Mex is similar - tacos get soggy, so much that Taco Bell tastes much worse if you get it in the drive through and drive 10 minutes home with it.
On the other hand, fried chicken products tend to do okay with the wait time. So while we don't see very many chicken-only delivery places, the major pizza chains often add chicken wings to their delivery options.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan