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points by themightyquinn 13 hours ago | 0 comments

For context Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart each have about a quarter of the online grocery delivery market with smaller outfits like Kroger and Albertsons eating up the remaining quarter. If you believe this data, that is. https://talkbusiness.net/2025/04/online-grocery-sales-rise-2...

[–] dessimus 9 hours ago

I've had failed or missing deliveries from an Albertson's owned grocery chain and when speaking to the manager of the department, they just subcontract the delivery to DD and UberEats, much like McDonald's does. It's not their own employees doing deliveries.

[–] Johnny555 8 hours ago

A few Albertsons stores do their own deliveries, but it's increasingly rare. I used to love my Abertsons deliveries. Always had the same guy (who was super friendly), and it came in a refrigerated truc, so cold products stayed cold.

I stopped using them when they switched to instacart -- the instacart shoppers really don't care about service, they're just trying to deliver orders as fast as possible so they can more to the next one. They'll pack ice cream with a warm rotisserie chicken so you end up with molten ice cream as it sits in their trunk for 45 minutes while they make 2 deliveries before yours. And in the half dozen or so times I used them, not a single order was correct.

Now I use Amazon Whole Foods because even though they use gig drivers for the delivery, the food is well packed (and they use foil lined bags for cold products that do a decent job of keeping cold foods cold.

[–] KerrAvon 8 hours ago

Amazon/Whole Foods in our area seems consistently unable to pack bananas in a way that doesn't result in bruising. I'm beginning to think they train them to put heavy cans on top of bananas for some reason.

[–] sib 3 hours ago

It protects the cans from denting...

[–] tylergetsay 9 hours ago

When shopping from kroger you can pay extra to get 2-3hr delivery from insta cart. If not your order gets routed through a more efficient planned route that hits multiple houses

[–] bradlys 11 hours ago

It's believable to me. I exclusively use Walmart and Amazon for groceries now. The nearest grocery store is 10+ minute drive away and with gas prices, my time, etc. I'd rather just buy online and wait for someone to deliver to my door. It's much quicker than going around the store looking for items too.

It used to be there was a significant premium for this service and that's why I wouldn't do it but not anymore. In places like NYC - it's actually much cheaper than local options.

[–] vostrocity 9 hours ago

I've worked these 1099 grocery delivery gigs and you get paid around minimum wage to lug these very heavy orders of water and juice up stairs, all while adding miles to your own vehicle and bearing the full risk of injury because you're an independent contractor. I hope you tip them well at least.

[–] BenjiWiebe 9 hours ago

I wish no one would tip them. Then they'd quit working for minimum wage, then the costs would go up, then I could see the actual cost of the service and make a decision to use it or not.

a tip for an unusual order/circumstance would be fine. Say if you ordered a 50lb bag of cat food, and live on the Nth floor, and the elevators are not working.

[–] autoexec 8 hours ago

> Then they'd quit working for minimum wage

I see no reason to think that was the case. They'll work for whatever rate companies pay them. There are many workers in minimum wage jobs who don't get tips at all. I agree that tipping is a bad practice and that it pushes labor costs onto customers. It will take regulation for companies to stop and tipping culture to change. I'm doing my part to try and keep the problem from getting worse by refusing to tip for almost anything except deliveries and being actually waited on. No matter how much companies beg for tips for basic retail purchases and counter service I don't feel at all bad about turning them down.

[–] komali2 1 hour ago

This seems to be you choosing to live in an idealized form of your future vs the actual reality of today. My question is, if you're choosing idealized anyway, why stop at a mundane ideal where anyone has to work for minimum wage at all? Unless you've baked the lower class labor category into your ideal future?

You not tipping doesn't improve anyone's material conditions. You choosing to give money to the exploitative companies does affect material conditions, negatively! To me it sounds like you're trying to doordash your cake, eat it, have it, not pay for it, and get paid for eating it, all at once!

[–] drnick1 2 hours ago

I only tip servers in sit-own restaurants. I don't tip drivers, fast food or coffee shop workers. Sue me.

[–] bradlys 6 hours ago

I don't tip. I don't believe in the practice of tipping and especially with digital platforms I don't trust where the money goes.

If I am tipping, it will be directly and usually in cash and there's only one person who gets that and it's the person who cuts my hair.

Get a different job if you don't like it. Minimum wage jobs are dime a dozen and have joke requirements to get onboarded. It's not like competing for faang or whatever.

[–] komali2 1 hour ago

Why does your personal activism stop after the point that harms fellow humans but not before the step of rewarding an exploitative corporation that subsidizes its labor cost with tips and your tax dollars through welfare to its laborers?

[–] autoexec 9 hours ago

You can be sure that delivery fees will more than cover whatever the cost of gas, the cost of the driver, and the time it takes employees to shop for you so you aren't likely saving money, but the extra you pay may still be worth the convenience.

Have you been careful about making sure that the prices you're charged when shopping online are the same as what's on the price tag on the shelves? Online shopping makes it extremely easy for companies to overcharge you based on what they think you're willing/able to pay and provides them with valuable data they can use to decide when/how much to raise their prices.

You can also run into problems where employees will select for lower quality produce, and about to expire foods that in-store shoppers will commonly pass over. It's nice that it means less food gets thrown away, but can also mean you can end up wasting your money buying food you can't or don't want to eat.

[–] Marsymars 6 hours ago

> You can be sure that delivery fees will more than cover whatever the cost of gas, the cost of the driver, and the time it takes employees to shop for you so you aren't likely saving money, but the extra you pay may still be worth the convenience.

In theory, batching deliveries should delivery economies of scale on vehicle and labour costs.

[–] autoexec 4 hours ago

Judging from other comments, the costs of gas and vehicle maintenance get pushed onto the drivers so probably aren't added to the cost of orders in fees.

[–] bradlys 6 hours ago

So far it saves me money. Nearest Walmart is 10+ miles away.

I haven't really had too many issues with ordering online. It works for me.

I haven't noticed a price difference shopping in store vs online. The local grocers massively overcharge in comparison to Amazon and Walmart.

[–] autoexec 4 hours ago

> The local grocers massively overcharge in comparison to Amazon and Walmart

Those local shops might not have much choice. Walmart has been caught forcing companies to charge every other store higher wholesale prices than what they charge Walmart for the same goods. It's actually illegal, but the FTC doesn't bother enforcing it. Amazon has also been accused of forcing companies to raise their prices elsewhere and if companies refuse amazon removes the “Add to cart” and “Buy Now” buttons from their products pages. Last I heard they were being sued for that, so maybe the situation with amazon will improve.

[–] bradlys 1 hour ago

It's really not the case. I'm talking like 2x the price of products. They basically started charging ridiculous prices because they wanted to gouge on whales. Unsurprisingly, these places are empty when I go into them now compared to ten years ago. They also have no one working at them.