Shop till you flop: Why can’t anyone make money in online grocery delivery?
Consumers love it and demand is growing — so why can't online grocery services seem to turn a profit?
April Miller says she loves to cook, but ever since the 32-year-old corporate accountant moved to New York City she’s struggled to find time to eat a sit-down meal, much less make one herself. Perpetually busy, she forgoes the weekly schlep to the grocery store to carve out precious time to prep her meals for the week.
“Sometimes I pick up a few things I need on my way home from work, but most of my regular grocery shopping is delivered,” she told Salon. “Usually I set aside time over the weekend to receive a delivery and after that I plan meals for the week. I can’t afford to spend $10 or $20 a day on lunch.”
Miller, who uses FreshDirect, is one of a growing number of time-starved Americans embracing online grocery shopping. She’s also the online grocer’s ideal customer, the so-called “big basket” buyer who stocks up on goods for the week and has a predictable delivery window. For online grocers, these are the kinds of customers that will offer a path toward profitability in this popular but not yet lucrative retail business.
Despite immense growth in demand in recent years, the online grocery business remains largely unprofitable. As an online grocery business grows, it can no longer rely on sending workers to local grocery outlets to fill orders. Instead, they must invest heavily in more intricate and more costly ordering and logistics systems in order to pick, pack and deliver the near-infinite combinations of items customers select.
“Success becomes a problem,” Carrie Bienkowski, chief marketing officer for online grocer Peapod, told Salon. “The minute you hit a certain amount of ordering volume, you have other operational challenges: you’re crowding the physical store [with employees picking the items], you get out-of-stock issues, your labor expenses go up significantly and it quickly spirals out of control.”
Skokie, Illinois-based Peapod was one of the earliest startups of the dot-com era, launching its web-based grocery business in the ’90s. The company was lateracquired by Netherlands-based global retailer Ahold (now known as Ahold Delhaize). Today, Peapod operates mainly in the Eastern U.S. and benefits from its access to Ahold’s Stop & Shop and Giant Food outlets, giving it an in-house advantage against rivals in less-popular areas where grocery delivery is currently a loss-leader. While Ahold doesn’t break out Peapod’s financial details, Bienkowski said Peapod has more than 500,000 active subscribers and more than 3 million annual orders.
Like its rivals, Peapod remains focused on growth rather than profitability by focusing specifically on big-basket buyers like Miller. Last year, Peapod expandedinto New York City’s five boroughs, directly challenging FreshDirect on its home turf, after opening it largest warehouse across the Hudson River from Manhattan in Jersey City.
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