In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche
Mobile payment apps are still a tough sell to America’s consumers and merchants, Kount’s data indicates. The company that can change that paradigm will make a fortune.
That means more two thirds of American retailers or 71% still refuse to accept mobile wallets. Once again it sounds as if Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is losing the payment wars, and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) is not doing very well.
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Ocado claims to process 260,000 orders a week with an order accuracy rate of 99% and an on-time delivery rate of 95%. The company claims to reduce costs with a 0.7% rate of product waste, which sounds hard to believe.
What’s truly interesting is that Ocado might be ahead of Amazon in its use of robots to move groceries. Ocado claims to have 1,100 robots at work in its newest Customer Fulfillment Center (CFC3) in Andover, Hampshire. Pictures online show Ocado robots working in refrigerated warehouses and giant freezers.
Those robots can supposedly pick and pack an order of 50 items in just five minutes. That is amazing because the CFC3 is stocked with 50,000 items, and the center itself is the size of three football fields.
Teaming up with high-end grocers like Lidl and Trader Joe’s for Shipt delivery is a smart move for Target. Other logical moves will to add brands like CVS, Walgreens, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Rite Aid, Albertsons, Nordstrom, Aldi, Trader Joes, Safeway, Publix, and Best Buy to the Shipt ecosystem.
More importantly, Target is well positioned to cash in on today’s retail environment and the transition from brick and mortar to delivery. If you want to profit from the growth of grocery delivery, Target is one of your best bets.
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The future of delivery will be specialist delivery firms such as Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB) and Instacart that concentrate on one kind of order such as groceries or hot meals. One-size fits all delivery such as that promoted by Uber Rush appears to be a flop.
Other delivery services will take the place of Uber and Lyft, and customer service should not be affected, Blakeman said. Walmart owns the same-day delivery service Parcel and is working with some other delivery services including Deliv and Google Express. Walmart is also working with Postmates and DoorDash, Reuters reported.
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The grocery delivery wars are heating up fast. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) have expanded their same-day efforts
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News stories did not say whether WeChat Pay will be integrated with Walmart’s QR-code based payment app Walmart Pay. Walmart Pay is one of the fastest growing payment solutions in the United States.
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One obvious possibility here is that Kroger is planning to buy Instacart. Such an acquisition is not farfetched; Kroger just sold its convenience stores for $2.1 billion which could finance an Instacart purchase. Target (NYSE: TGT); one of Kroger’s biggest competitors, has bought the shopping service Shipt and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) has plans to offer grocery delivery in 100 cities by the end of 2018.
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An interesting question here is should Amazon have bought Supervalu instead of Whole Foods? After all, SuperValu is a discounter like Amazon, and it services a general mass market rather than a select upper-class clientele.
SuperValu’s stable of private label grocery brands might have been a better fit for Amazon than Whole Foods’ line up. Grub Street reported that Whole Foods’ suppliers are in revolt against Amazon. That provides an opening for Kroger (NYSE: KR) or Walmart (NYSE: WMT) to poach some of Whole Foods’ suppliers.
An advantage that SuperValu would have brought to Amazon is a lineup of products directed at average middle and working-class customers the bulk of the consumer base. Another is a lot experience in the supermarket and grocery sphere and established stores in large metropolitan markets.
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Likely responses to Walmart’s offensive might be Amazon’s acquisition of a traditional grocer like Safeway or Winn-Dixie, or Amazon or Target partnering with traditional grocers such as Publix. Kroger might respond by buying InstaCart and joining Google Shopping Express.
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A true nightmare for dollar stores would be caught in the squeeze between Automated Walmart and Amazon Go. Dollar stores are already caught in the increasingly brutal crossfire between Amazon.com and Walmart.com.
The No-Man’s land between Automated Walmart and Amazon Go would be far worse. A true nightmare for dollar stores would be both retailers using their automated stores as neighborhood fulfillment centers for same-day delivery.
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