Kroger attempts to improve its brand image by getting press saying it's going to do driverless deliveries, even though it's not going to work:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/27/kroger-to-soon-begin-driverless-grocery-delivery.html

 

Looks to me like Kroger is using this fake news as a recruiting tool.  They can tell a prospective employee that they're developing driverless delivery so they can pretend that they're working for a tech company.  Except widespread driverless delivery of groceries is a long, long way away.

 

Sounds like you are putting Kroger down a bit. Kroger is the third largest retailer in the world. Their access and generation of mountains of consumer data alone qualifies them as a tech company. If not, it at least positions them to become one out of (corporate) life-or-death necessity.

 

Kroger May just be the tech company/talent attractor watershed this region needs.

 

Edit: Removed some snarkiness.

I think it may be smart for Kroger to virtue-signal to Wall Street, which is irrationally tech obsessed. I don’t think it would be smart for them to be on the bleeding edge of autonomous vehicle technology.

 

When I was testing navigation systems 10 years ago, none of the map data included information about people’s driveways, only public streets. It is going to be a technical challenge to correctly match driveways to addresses, and then find the appropriate place in the driveway to stop to allow for convenient grocery off-loading.

Found another article on this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/self-driving-car-startup-nuro-teams-up-with-kroger-for-same-day-grocery-delivery

 

 

A month ago Kroger bought the UK supermarket chain Ocado. This is their automated packing technology:

 

Yeah you're looking at tens of millions, if not over $100 million, in venture capital going down the drain.  We're not seeing what is actually being picked here, either.  Is there ice cream? Gordon's Fish Sticks? Berry & melon fruit cocktail? Rack of lamb?

 

I have worked in logistics for 10~ years at various places and one of my brothers works on the tech side of it (does warehouse software for big box retail).  Warehousing food is a total mess compared to, say, vacuum cleaners and extension chords and pneumatic staplers.  My brother's company had the Petsmart account and had to create software patches for...the pets.  In addition to litter boxes and dog food they actual warehouse...pets, which are perishable.  He told me that they had to concede to a manual input for estimating fish. 

 

Real question. Kroger is one of the largest companies in the country. Do you, a single person with anecdotal evidence only, really think you're smarter than their entire hordes of humans dedicated to making business decisions? Because it sure does sound like you do.

 

Why don't we actually wait to learn more about the system they want to implement.

Real question. Kroger is one of the largest companies in the country. Do you, a single person with anecdotal evidence only, really think you're smarter than their entire hordes of humans dedicated to making business decisions? Because it sure does sound like you do.

 

A supermarket grocery already has huge advantages over home delivery.  The customer assembles his order free of charge and during that assembly is captive to all sorts of advertising for the grocer's other products and services.  The customer drives to the store free of charge in a vehicle they own and maintain.  In a home delivery scenario, a grocery store now has to pick and pack the order, then drive it to a house in a company-owned vehicle within a narrow time frame. 

 

Slam.   

 

 

A month ago Kroger bought the UK supermarket chain Ocado. This is their automated packing technology:

 

Yeah you're looking at tens of millions, if not over $100 million, in venture capital going down the drain.  We're not seeing what is actually being picked here, either.  Is there ice cream? Gordon's Fish Sticks? Berry & melon fruit cocktail? Rack of lamb?

 

I have worked in logistics for 10~ years at various places and one of my brothers works on the tech side of it (does warehouse software for big box retail).  Warehousing food is a total mess compared to, say, vacuum cleaners and extension chords and pneumatic staplers.  My brother's company had the Petsmart account and had to create software patches for...the pets.  In addition to litter boxes and dog food they actual warehouse...pets, which are perishable.  He told me that they had to concede to a manual input for estimating fish.

 

Ocado is an 18 year old company, so they have figured a lot of these things out already. If you look at their website you will see they have a large variety of perishables including dairy, fish, fruits & vegetables, and meat. https://www.ocado.com/

 

When I was testing navigation systems 10 years ago, none of the map data included information about people’s driveways, only public streets. It is going to be a technical challenge to correctly match driveways to addresses, and then find the appropriate place in the driveway to stop to allow for convenient grocery off-loading.

 

Between Google Maps, Apple Maps, Open Street Maps / Mapbox (main investor is Softbank/Sprint), Mapquest (Verizon), Here Maps (Nokia & German Automakers) there are billions being spent right now to get digital maps in a state to support autonomous vehicles. Of course a monumental amount of work remains, but perhaps they are further than you realize.

 

As one example here is a personal driveway in Hyde Park, Cincinnati that is captured by Open Street Maps. If you look at the house to the west, not only is its driveway captured, but its private walkway to the curb is also captured and properly described. However your point is still true as the houses across the street are missing their private driveways. Once a company starts providing autonomous ride sharing / deliveries these oversights will be filled rapidly.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/560809599#

People will pay so they can be lazy.  It's why quick list pickup has been so popular and why home delivery has/is becoming popular. 

Real question. Kroger is one of the largest companies in the country. Do you, a single person with anecdotal evidence only, really think you're smarter than their entire hordes of humans dedicated to making business decisions? Because it sure does sound like you do.

 

A supermarket grocery already has huge advantages over home delivery.  The customer assembles his order free of charge and during that assembly is captive to all sorts of advertising for the grocer's other products and services.  The customer drives to the store free of charge in a vehicle they own and maintain.  In a home delivery scenario, a grocery store now has to pick and pack the order, then drive it to a house in a company-owned vehicle within a narrow time frame. 

 

Slam.   

 

The slew of services where people hire on demand people to go out and do just that tells me that this will probably be fine. People are very willing to pay someone to do this for them so they don't have to.

Real question. Kroger is one of the largest companies in the country. Do you, a single person with anecdotal evidence only, really think you're smarter than their entire hordes of humans dedicated to making business decisions? Because it sure does sound like you do.

 

A supermarket grocery already has huge advantages over home delivery.  The customer assembles his order free of charge and during that assembly is captive to all sorts of advertising for the grocer's other products and services.  The customer drives to the store free of charge in a vehicle they own and maintain.  In a home delivery scenario, a grocery store now has to pick and pack the order, then drive it to a house in a company-owned vehicle within a narrow time frame. 

 

Slam. 

 

The home delivery part of the equation isn't the new part. My 90 year old great aunt has had her groceries delivered her entire life; she orders over the phone. In very urban places like New York and San Fransisco, it never went away. At an earlier time in American history home delivery was pretty standard. Remember milkmen?

I think it really depends on the area and how screen-oriented the people are. Some of the big cities have full buildings where nobody leaves except to go to work because they are screening all the time. They have all their food delivered and even have people do their laundry for them so that they can spend more time in front of a screen. Some of them are indeed working and getting paid well for it making it a better choice for them than lugging bags around. Meanwhile others "need to catch up on their shows" or don't want to let down the other members of their guild. Contrast this with a lot of suburbanites and rural dwellers who try to DIY all kinds of things that they really should be farming out.

I think it really depends on the area and how screen-oriented the people are. Some of the big cities have full buildings where nobody leaves except to go to work because they are screening all the time. They have all their food delivered and even have people do their laundry for them so that they can spend more time in front of a screen. Some of them are indeed working and getting paid well for it making it a better choice for them than lugging bags around. Meanwhile others "need to catch up on their shows" or don't want to let down the other members of their guild. Contrast this with a lot of suburbanites and rural dwellers who try to DIY all kinds of things that they really should be farming out.

 

What? Entire buildings where nobody leaves because of screens? You're describing a dystopian fantasy, not real life. I've lived in multiple large cities and I can assure you this is not reality. In my experience, suburbs and rural areas--both places I have also lived--are much more isolating than cities. Living in a big city forces you to get out and explore the world, rather than stay in your house and personal car. But when I've lived in very large cities I usually do multiple small grocery trips per week because it's difficult to carry lots of stuff. A delivery service solves that problem. That's why it's popular in big cities, not because people don't leave their buildings. 

Look at midrise and hi-rise buildings with balconies.  You hardly ever see anyone on them.  They're not even grilling.  Listen to all of the window AC units tearing it up when it's 68F out.  Delete dog walking from the equation and there isn't a lot of street activity in most city neighborhoods. 

What world are you living in? None of that's true. Those balconies aren't used because of primal instincts to not place yourself on dangerous ledges. They aren't comfortable. It has nothing to do with people not leaving their apartment, it has everything to do with those types of balconies being unpleasant to occupy.

 

It blows my mind how delusional some people are. They truly believe that technology has created people that don't leave their homes for anything and will pay any cost to continue to remain at home. It just isn't true. If it was all these new bars and restaurants would be failing. And they're not.

 

I live in a pretty average density urban neighborhood right now that's a mix of 4 or 6 story apartment buildings, early 20th Century victorian single family homes, and some big educational institutions. I'm at home right now (summer Fridays = good. Being grossly sick on a summer Friday = not good) and can hear people outside talking, there are kids playing on the sidewalk, and when I went to get medicine a few blocks away there were plenty of people going about their lives. And it's currently 88 degrees out and I don't hear a single window AC unit when I look out the window. Mine is currently set to pull fresh air inside (without conditioning it) to help with circulation problems my apartment has, but other than that everyone's windows are wide open enjoying the breeze if they're at home.

I'm trying to find the article I read a few months ago called "Inside Food Delivery in Major Cities" or something like that where a reporter took a job delivering food for a little while and was sent to the "screen buildings" a lot. She interviewed some of the residents, talked to other delivery people in the buildings and what not. Cities are diverse places and this is a real thing.

Just heard that the demonstration warehouse pictured in England cost $300 million to build, or more than 10x the cost of a typical Kroger supermarket, which is $25 million.  Plus they'll need an army of driverless cars to deliver the stuff. 

 

How again does this possibly make money? 

I'm trying to find the article I read a few months ago called "Inside Food Delivery in Major Cities" or something like that where a reporter took a job delivering food for a little while and was sent to the "screen buildings" a lot. She interviewed some of the residents, talked to other delivery people in the buildings and what not. Cities are diverse places and this is a real thing.

 

I'd be happy to read it because I think it's bullcrap. I'm sure there are some shut ins in cities, there are shut ins everywhere. But that's very different than what you're saying. I've lived in high rises my entire adult life and this is foreign to me. Go to any park in any urban neighborhood any day and you'll see tons of people out and about. I don't even know what to say to this, it's so silly.

I don't think it's all that silly. I know lots and lots of people my age who order delivery food all the time rather than going out to eat. People shop online instead of going to actual stores (including for groceries, per this thread). You can stream movies right from your TV or computer instead of having to go to the theater or video rental store. Hell, in CA (and other places too, I'm sure) you can even get weed delivered right to your apartment's front door.

 

In general, a lot of people simply don't like interacting with others unless they have to. Look at the popularity of self checkout for an example of this. Now, that's not to say that people who rely on delivery for a lot of things never ever leave their homes to go to the park or a restaurant or whatever, but people in 2018 are certainly better able to stay home and have things delivered to them than they were in the past. With delivery being more available in urban areas than suburban or rural, it makes sense that this experience is exacerbated in these locations.

I'm trying to find the article I read a few months ago called "Inside Food Delivery in Major Cities" or something like that where a reporter took a job delivering food for a little while and was sent to the "screen buildings" a lot. She interviewed some of the residents, talked to other delivery people in the buildings and what not. Cities are diverse places and this is a real thing.

 

I'd be happy to read it because I think it's bullcrap. I'm sure there are some shut ins in cities, there are shut ins everywhere. But that's very different than what you're saying. I've lived in high rises my entire adult life and this is foreign to me. Go to any park in any urban neighborhood any day and you'll see tons of people out and about. I don't even know what to say to this, it's so silly.

 

 

You needen't take offense regarding something other people do.

Just heard that the demonstration warehouse pictured in England cost $300 million to build, or more than 10x the cost of a typical Kroger supermarket, which is $25 million.  Plus they'll need an army of driverless cars to deliver the stuff. 

 

The warehouse in video has been in operation since December 2016, so I think it's a stretch to call it a demonstration warehouse. Its performance has been so impressive they are building a new UK warehouse for themselves that will be three times larger and have signed deals to build 20 warehouses for Kroger, one in Toronto for Sobeys, one in Paris for Groupe Casino, and one in Stockholm for ICA.

 

The warehouse in the video isn't a replacement for a single store, it's designed to serve an entire region. Ocado has 3 grocery retail warehouse (the first two don't have the level of automation shown in the video), with the fourth being built. The orders aren't delivered directly to the costumer from the warehouse, but instead to a "spoke" warehouse first. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see their network: http://results17.ocadogroup.com/strategic-report/ocado-retail

 

Once you establish a home delivery network, you aren't restricted to just food. Ocado already offers home & garden products, clothing, and medicine. If Kroger can figure this out, they can take on Amazon directly.

 

How again does this possibly make money?

 

Here is Ocado's financial records for 2017. http://results17.ocadogroup.com/strategic-report/chief-financial-officers-review

 

For their retail segment (in £m):

Revenue 1,346.1

Gross profit 386.6

Other income 50.4

Distribution and administrative costs 356.1

EBITDAA 81.0

 

So it seems to be working for them.

 

Some really big Kroger news today:  https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/14/kroger-partners-with-alibaba-to-sell.html

 

Although it's too early to make any sweeping conclusions about this new Asian alliance,  it can be considered a major move by Kroger.  Here"s what two other media sources have said about such a partnership:

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kroger-to-sell-groceries-on-alibaba-site-in-china-1534268657?mod=hp_lead_pos10

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2018/08/14/kroger-teams-internet-juggernaut-alibaba-sell-groceries-china/988283002/

 

 

Kroger has also announced they are starting their autonomous vehicle delivery pilot program in suburban Phoenix. Apparently it's already up and running now.

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2018/08/16/kroger-driverless-delivery-location/1006438002/

 

It's not mentioned in the article, but my guess is there's a meat-and-bone copilot on these vehicles.

^Yes, there is.  They're driving around Toyota Prius's.  The actually autonomous delivery vehicles are really small and look like they might drive on the sidewalks, which would help explain the 2-mile delivery range. 

Kroger picks Greater Cincinnati for first warehouse with Ocado, creating 400-plus jobs

By Steve Watkins  – Staff Reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Nov 19, 2018, 2:11pm EST Updated 9 minutes ago

 

 

Kroger Co. and British online grocery retailer Ocado have determined the site of their first jointly developed $55 million warehouse and distribution center and the hundreds of jobs that go with it, and it’s in Greater Cincinnati.

The companies selected Monroe for the first “shed,” as Kroger calls the warehouse/distribution facilities. The facility will generate more than 410 new jobs, Kroger said. The shed is due to open in 2021, Kroger spokeswoman Kristal Howard told me. Construction in Monroe is subject to getting state and local incentives.

 

More

I had two conversations this past weekend about people gaming the U-scan at Kroger.  I remember when it started, thinking that it would be possible to ring up expensive stuff using the weight or sticker from a cheaper item.  Sure enough, I had people tell me they proudly switched the stickers on salmon for parsley, and other such "hacks".  Yes, the one guy called it a "hack". 

 

I imagine that this practice is widespread and isn't being deterred much by the cameras that they have mounted on the units. 

KROGER IS A TECH COMPANY:

https://www.wcpo.com/money/business-news/kroger-nuro-launch-delivery-service-using-unmanned-vehicles

 

 

Rebranding yourself as "tech" is the only way to get people interested in working for you anymore. I know a ton of companies that are hurting for manufacturing engineers doing work that's way more high-tech and cutting edge than making an app that you can order groceries from or whatever, but since it's "manufacturing" and not "tech" no one wants to do it. 

^As I speculated previously, Kroger's swerve into "tech" might be a loss leader.  They get tons of publicity and it helps with hiring.  Meanwhile, it's much, much more expensive from the company's perspective to deliver groceries to people than have them drive their own vehicle to a store and buy the stuff. 

 

As I have already mentioned, people don't slow down and actually think about how much labor we give to a grocery store. The whole trip to and from a grocery store usually takes upwards of an hour, if not more.  We don't pay ourselves $15/hr to do this.  We don't pay ourselves the daily ownership costs or gasoline costs to drive there and back.  So a single weekly shopping trip for a family to Kroger costs well over $20 and more like $30. 

 

But consumers WILL NOT PAY a $30 premium to have these services performed for them  The WILL NOT PAY someone $30 to drive their car to the grocery, select a cart full of stuff, and come back. 

 

So Kroger, etc., have to sink billions into R&D to develop robotic systems that will eliminate this $30 per order problem.  Good luck with that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^ Another part of being in the tech sector, associated with the loss-leading you addressed, is the massive pool of capital investors are willing to throw at loss-leading operations. I don't know if Kroger can really tap into that, being far from a start-up company which is the typical beneficiary of this model (Tesla and Uber being the poster children). Instead, they are playing the role of the funders to the start-ups they're partnering with.

 

Their case is really interesting, though. I wonder if unmanned delivery from neighborhood stores may actually be the proper place for level 5 autonomy to get started. The speed of the vehicle is fundamentally less important in this use-case. That makes it so much safer. They could be investing in the proper way ahead here, while Waymo, Uber, et. al. may be traveling towards a dead-end as they chase personal transportation, which it doesn't seem like the tech is there to make viable in the near future.

Edited December 19, 20186 yr by Robuu

17 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said:

Rebranding yourself as "tech" is the only way to get people interested in working for you anymore. I know a ton of companies that are hurting for manufacturing engineers doing work that's way more high-tech and cutting edge than making an app that you can order groceries from or whatever, but since it's "manufacturing" and not "tech" no one wants to do it. 

 

Well, I think what often has gone along with this is that salaries in the "tech" sector have traditionally been higher, so the best engineers want to go there--in fact, all do, and the best get in, and so the sector has a reputation for being loaded with talent, meaning that people also want it on their resumes.

 

I know engineering salaries in traditional manufacturing aren't exactly low across the board.  But my wife (a chemical engineer with an MBA) recently left a job at a very traditional manufacturing company in part because the pay raises (the real ones, not COLA ones) and promotions were very few and far between, and often constantly delayed or reset by deck-chair-style reorganizations.  The upward move was always "just a few years away."  Of course, she managed to get a significantly better offer without moving into what would be though of as tech (in some sense the opposite, in the current Zeitgeist--she went into the petrochemical sector designing process oils).

 

17 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

^As I speculated previously, Kroger's swerve into "tech" might be a loss leader.  They get tons of publicity and it helps with hiring.  Meanwhile, it's much, much more expensive from the company's perspective to deliver groceries to people than have them drive their own vehicle to a store and buy the stuff. 

 

As I have already mentioned, people don't slow down and actually think about how much labor we give to a grocery store. The whole trip to and from a grocery store usually takes upwards of an hour, if not more.  We don't pay ourselves $15/hr to do this.  We don't pay ourselves the daily ownership costs or gasoline costs to drive there and back.  So a single weekly shopping trip for a family to Kroger costs well over $20 and more like $30. 

 

But consumers WILL NOT PAY a $30 premium to have these services performed for them  The WILL NOT PAY someone $30 to drive their car to the grocery, select a cart full of stuff, and come back. 

 

So Kroger, etc., have to sink billions into R&D to develop robotic systems that will eliminate this $30 per order problem.  Good luck with that. 

 

The question is whether the availability of autonomous delivery changes shopping habits enough to bring in positive effects outside that raw trip-replacement math.  With autonomous delivery, do people order more?  Order more often?  Order higher-margin items?

 

For me, and I'm sure many others, the opportunity cost math for a grocery store run is often not a completely separate trip.  I drive by three different grocery stores on my way home from work, a trip I was going to be making anyway.  So the lost time is just the time spent in the store itself, against which I would need to offset the time spent on whatever app is necessary for home delivery orders.  Therefore, I'm probably not the ideal customer for a service like this.

 

From the store's perspective, the ideal will probably be a multi-stop trip.  If one of those little street-legal motorized shopping carts can make 3+ stops in a single route, much like delivery trucks optimize their routes, the cost per trip from the perspective of the store is considerably less.

 

11 minutes ago, Robuu said:

Their case is really interesting, though. I wonder if unmanned delivery from neighborhood stores may actually be the proper place for level 5 autonomy to get started. The speed of the vehicle is fundamentally less important in this use-case. That makes it so much safer. They could be investing in the proper way ahead here, while Waymo, Uber, et. al. may be traveling towards a dead-end as they chase personal transportation, which it doesn't seem like the tech is there to make viable in the near future.

 

Not just speed.  The size of the vehicle also makes it considerably less dangerous, though of course it's big enough that it could still seriously injure a pedestrian or cyclist depending on speed.  But of course, most importantly, there's also not a human passenger inside the vehicle.

6 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Not just speed.  The size of the vehicle also makes it considerably less dangerous, though of course it's big enough that it could still seriously injure a pedestrian or cyclist depending on speed.  But of course, most importantly, there's also not a human passenger inside the vehicle. 

 

True, the weight can be kept down considerably due to size and also perhaps by not needing to include passenger safety features.

 

Without an impatient passenger, and while keeping to lower-speed streets, the vehicle can slow down as much as necessary to accommodate for road and weather conditions. From what I have read (including from someone on this board reporting on a conversation with a "not-driver" on the Columbus shuttle), rain and falling leaves and squirrels and all sorts of things create problems for existing autonomous vehicles. If the vehicle can just slow down and let the algorithms take their time modeling the environment, it seems like all these issues would be much easier to handle at 10 mph versus the 65 mph demanded by an intercity Uber rider.

Statements like "nobody wants to do <insert job here>" or "we have a shortage of workers in <industry>" almost always mean companies are cheap and don't want to pay fair market salaries for those positions.  Yes it's difficult to take the high road when other companies can undercut you through various shady means, but that's a whole other issue.  Sure there are some jobs that command very high salaries and still go unfilled because the skill set is just so esoteric and high-level, but those are rare beasts.  The medical industry is the only one I can think of offhand where the education and accrediting system is deliberately constraining the employee pool to keep salaries high. 

 

As a cyclist and pedestrian (granted everyone is a pedestrian at some point, even if just walking from their car through a parking lot), I find the notion of autonomous vehicles quite unnerving.  Even low-speed local delivery vehicles pose concerns.  For instance, who unloads them at their destination, the customer?  Will there be micro-delivery robots to take them to the door?  Will they be able to double park, block bike lanes, pull over curbs?  The knee-jerk answer to those questions is "of course not!" but there's markets like NYC and SF where the consequence of 100% law-abiding AI is that the delivery fails when no legal drop-off location is available.  But when an autonomous vehicle is allowed to bend the rules, can someone walking or biking by confront it?  You can tell a UPS driver "don't park there" and there's a chance they'll take it to heart.  Does an autonomous vehicle even have an input for such interaction, let alone programming to process it?  Acts as simple as opening doors can have safety impacts.  Is that factored in?

 

I guess what bothers me the most is that the only solution appears to be perfection.  More sensors, better cameras, faster processing, more elaborate algorithms, brute-forcing the problem.  There doesn't seem to be a keep-it-simple-stupid option, so instead engineers are chasing the long tail of complexity, needing to analyze and account for every possible scenario, but never actually getting there.  Will it be better than flawed humans?  We may already be there, but it's a very fragile arrangement whose problems are going to be magnified as the fleet grows.  Yeah those problems can be fixed, piling on yet more calculations.  Because of this, there's already some push to try to simplify the environment to accommodate the vehicles.  Better lane markings, more understandable intersections, fewer conflicts, the types of things highway engineers have been using to destroy our cities for nearly 100 years now, only taken to an even more absurd level (complex design, simple function, expensive to build, and unpleasant).  This is also happening right when we as a culture are starting to realize just how important complex streets for multiple granular uses are (simple design, complex function, cheap to build, and pleasant).  That's just "too hard" for the current AI though, and we have to keep fighting to not lose the small gains we've made in reclaiming our streets for people instead of vehicles. 

44 minutes ago, jjakucyk said:

Because of this, there's already some push to try to simplify the environment to accommodate the vehicles.  Better lane markings, more understandable intersections, fewer conflicts, the types of things highway engineers have been using to destroy our cities for nearly 100 years now, only taken to an even more absurd level (complex design, simple function, expensive to build, and unpleasant).  This is also happening right when we as a culture are starting to realize just how important complex streets for multiple granular uses are (simple design, complex function, cheap to build, and pleasant).  That's just "too hard" for the current AI though, and we have to keep fighting to not lose the small gains we've made in reclaiming our streets for people instead of vehicles. 

 

This is the greatest danger to cities and walkable places. Do we force the AV's to conform to cities, or do we conform cities to the AV's? We know what choice our society made with the car 100 years ago.

How is Kroger so far behind all of its competitors when it comes to technology?

 

Quote

 

Kroger launches mobile payment

 

Kroger Co. customers have a new option when it comes to paying for their groceries.

 

The Cincinnati-based grocer (NYSE: KR) recently launched its Kroger Pay mobile payment solution in its Columbus division along with a Rewards debit card.

 

Kroger Pay is available on iOS and Android devices. It allows customers to use a single QR code containing their payment and loyalty card information after inputting a custom PIN or biometrics. The single scan at the payment terminal will include all of the customer’s digital coupons and personalized offers as well. It’s expected to reduce checkout time and can be used at self-checkout and traditional cashier lanes.

 

 

This sounds exactly like CurrentC, which was an effort by retailers like Target, Walmart, Publix, and 7 Eleven to develop a payment solution where customers would download an app, link it to their bank account/credit card, and scan the QR code at the point of purchase. They shut down this app in 2016 when they realized it was an awful idea, and customers are not willing to download an app and have this entirely different payment method that only works at a few stores. Most of these retailers have now updated their point-of-sale systems to accept standard contactless payment methods like Android Pay, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, etc. At this rate, Kroger will realize in 2024 that no one is using their custom payment app and finally start accepting standard contactless payments.

Marilyn Manson's stage set at Riverbend last weekend looked unmistakably like the Kroger tower:

 

Berkshire Hathaway just bought 3 million shares of Kroger, increasing its stake to 21.9 million shares.  The stock has been trading in the mid-$30's for the past few weeks, meaning they likely bought exactly $100 million.  Berkshire's total Kroger stake is currently worth $7.6 billion.  The stock is currently paying an 18-cent dividend, so Berkshire will now collect a hair under $4 million every three months.  

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-sells-jpmorgan-occidental-stock-buys-barrick-gold-51597438489?mod=home-page

This documentary sez absoultely nothing that people here haven't heard before, but the new Corryville store makes a few cameos:

 

As if the grocery space in northeast Ohio weren't already competitive enough:

 

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2021/11/03/grocery-chain-kroger-plans-delivery-services-northeast-ohio-fulfillment-center-akron-canton-hudson/6263878001/

 

Grocery giant Kroger looks to re-enter Northeast Ohio market with delivery services

 

Kroger is considering a site in Oakwood, according to the Crain's report.

 

Kroger is looking at building a high-tech fulfillment center that can be used to deliver groceries in a 90-mile region, Crain's said. Kroger, the nation's largest grocery chain, does not have any retail stores in Northeast Ohio; it has more than 200 grocery stores elsewhere in the state. According to Crain's, Kroger's last Northeast Ohio store closed in 1985.

 

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My local business prediction is that Kroger will eventually make a play to acquire a regional grocery chain in the northeast rather than building from scratch, possibly Dave's, Acme Fresh Market, or Fisher's Foods.  The competition in grocery is white-hot right now and the trend for consolidation and automation (not to mention supply chain management, at least at the moment) is going to increasingly favor the big players, which Kroger has become, especially over the last 20 years or so.  Cleveland, Akron, and Canton are so close to their headquarters that I'm surprised they don't already have a presence in northeast Ohio.

Being a native Clevelander who spent ten years combined in the Columbus and Cincinnati areas, I miss having Kroger as an option for certain things.

 

It was nice in Columbus having Kroger and Giant Eagle competing. Kroger has far superior deli meat to Giant Eagle. Though Giant Eagle has a much better salad bar and olive bar than Kroger. So I'd end up having to go to both.

 

In Cincinnati, Kroger is too dominant though, there's not enough competition and choice.

Cleveland has it pretty good right now with Giant Eagle, Heinen's, and Dave's. I don't expect the Heinens or the Saltzmans (Dave's) to ever sell so we'll see. I don't know anything about the ownership of the Akron chains you mentioned.

Edited November 4, 20213 yr by mu2010

15 hours ago, Gramarye said:

As if the grocery space in northeast Ohio weren't already competitive enough:

 

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2021/11/03/grocery-chain-kroger-plans-delivery-services-northeast-ohio-fulfillment-center-akron-canton-hudson/6263878001/

 

Grocery giant Kroger looks to re-enter Northeast Ohio market with delivery services

 

Kroger is considering a site in Oakwood, according to the Crain's report.

 

Kroger is looking at building a high-tech fulfillment center that can be used to deliver groceries in a 90-mile region, Crain's said. Kroger, the nation's largest grocery chain, does not have any retail stores in Northeast Ohio; it has more than 200 grocery stores elsewhere in the state. According to Crain's, Kroger's last Northeast Ohio store closed in 1985.

 

===================================================

 

My local business prediction is that Kroger will eventually make a play to acquire a regional grocery chain in the northeast rather than building from scratch, possibly Dave's, Acme Fresh Market, or Fisher's Foods.  The competition in grocery is white-hot right now and the trend for consolidation and automation (not to mention supply chain management, at least at the moment) is going to increasingly favor the big players, which Kroger has become, especially over the last 20 years or so.  Cleveland, Akron, and Canton are so close to their headquarters that I'm surprised they don't already have a presence in northeast Ohio.

 

Kroger's delivery service is top-notch. I have been using it for the last few months. I am not sure if my service is out of a store or out of their prototype fulfillment center in Monroe, OH.  If you're the type of person who makes a list and walks into the store knowing what you're going to get, it's a no-brainer. It saves me an hour every weekend.

 

In related news, they are now offering a subscription service for delivery. I think the delivery fee is around $7, so this makes since if you use it once a month or so:

 

https://www.wlwt.com/article/kroger-offering-annual-membership-to-customers-with-free-delivery-double-fuel-points/38145560

 

1 hour ago, mu2010 said:

Being a native Clevelander who spent ten years combined in the Columbus and Cincinnati areas, I miss having Kroger as an option for certain things.

 

It was nice in Columbus having Kroger and Giant Eagle competing. Kroger has far superior deli meat to Giant Eagle. Though Giant Eagle has a much better salad bar and olive bar than Kroger. So I'd end up having to go to both.

 

In Cincinnati, Kroger is too dominant though, there's not enough competition and choice.

Cleveland has it pretty good right now with Giant Eagle, Heinen's, and Dave's. I don't expect the Heinens or the Saltzmans (Dave's) to ever sell so we'll see. I don't know anything about the ownership of the Akron chains you mentioned.

Dave's?? Is that an Akron chain? I have not heard of that one. 

I always remembered Topps, Giant Eagle, Heinans, and Marcs.

19 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Dave's?? Is that an Akron chain? I have not heard of that one. 

I always remembered Topps, Giant Eagle, Heinans, and Marcs.

 

Dave's is a Cleveland chain that has a a growing amount of stores in the suburbs but for the most part serves the City of Cleveland in neighborhoods where the big chains don't want to go. The original store was just east of downtown and was something like 80 years old. They moved out a couple years ago and built a brand new, shiny flagship store near Euclid Ave & E. 55th, with the help of some city and federal subsidy.

 

Their reputation is of a lower price and quality though I'd say they've upped their game a little bit in recent years. They also acquired two high-end stores under the Lucky's name - one on the west side of Cleveland and the other in Clintonville, Columbus - and they recently opened a third Lucky's in Lake County.

Edited November 4, 20213 yr by mu2010

Aside from Giant Eagle, Acme is NE Ohio's closest brand to a Kroger.  Dave's is lower-market and Heinans is higher-market.  I always found it strange that Acme never left the Akron area as I thought it would do well in Metro Cleveland or Metro Youngstown.

Well, Acme did open a store in Parma several years ago.  I believe they had plans to open another store in the Cleveland area, but it never happened. 

3 hours ago, ColDayMan said:

Aside from Giant Eagle, Acme is NE Ohio's closest brand to a Kroger.  Dave's is lower-market and Heinans is higher-market.  I always found it strange that Acme never left the Akron area as I thought it would do well in Metro Cleveland or Metro Youngstown.

 

I agree that Acme is the most likely target of the ones I mentioned, and also more likely than some of the ones I forgot to mention, e.g., Marc's, Heinen's.  But Kroger would want something with a Cleveland presence, too, which acquiring Acme alone wouldn't give them.  That probably means they'd want either Marc's (which has a decent-sized presence in both Cleveland and Akron-Canton) or Acme plus one of the others, e.g., Dave's (which is concentrated in Cleveland, even though it has one store in east Akron, the mirror of Acme being concentrated in Akron-Canton but having one store in Parma).

 

Marc's is slightly more economy-grade than Kroger's flagship, but it has the footprint they'd want (and my wife shops at Marc's routinely and, at least by her telling, they often have many of the same brands as regular grocery stores, they just don't have as good of produce and they often don't have as many of the specialty counters and sections that Kroger, Acme, and Giant Eagle have).

40 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

I agree that Acme is the most likely target of the ones I mentioned, and also more likely than some of the ones I forgot to mention, e.g., Marc's, Heinen's.  But Kroger would want something with a Cleveland presence, too, which acquiring Acme alone wouldn't give them.  That probably means they'd want either Marc's (which has a decent-sized presence in both Cleveland and Akron-Canton) or Acme plus one of the others, e.g., Dave's (which is concentrated in Cleveland, even though it has one store in east Akron, the mirror of Acme being concentrated in Akron-Canton but having one store in Parma).

 

Marc's is slightly more economy-grade than Kroger's flagship, but it has the footprint they'd want (and my wife shops at Marc's routinely and, at least by her telling, they often have many of the same brands as regular grocery stores, they just don't have as good of produce and they often don't have as many of the specialty counters and sections that Kroger, Acme, and Giant Eagle have).

I cant see them acquiring Marc's or a more discount chain like Acme. Kroger is trying to position itself on the mid/higher end of the scale. Heinens could be a possibility although Heinens has a small footprint.  Some of their last deals like Harris Teeter and the acquisition of the Milwaukee company were designed to get it into concepts that competed on the higher end of the market to allow for products with a bit larger margins. 

Stores like Marcs or the Food Lions of the world are not a good fit for that model. If Kroger makes a brick and mortar play in NE Ohio, I would bet it would be more along the lines of a Heinans or going really big and trying to buy Giant Eagle out, but if they do that (Giant Eagle), it becomes more of a real estate play. 

My guess is that they build up a delivery warehouse with their Ocado subsidiary and then they pick a few areas where they can have a retail presence around their distribution center and build a few brick and mortar from scratch. Their new distribution model does not necessitate an acquisition to get into the market anymore.

On 11/4/2021 at 10:23 AM, Brutus_buckeye said:

I cant see them acquiring Marc's or a more discount chain like Acme. 

Acme is not a discount chain. Marc’s is a discount chain. 

Acme is basically like Giant Eagle only smaller, limited to northeast Ohio.  I shop at both.  The one thing Acme now dramatically lags behind Giant Eagle on is online shopping; Giant Eagle significantly updated its Web site and app during the pandemic to enable better ordering for curbside and delivery orders.  If Kroger buys Acme, it can superimpose its own online service options.

 

Examples from 2020 (Acme has also slightly improved since these days, but I took these screenshots during the coronavirus lockdown in the second quarter of last year):

 

This is not what your first five results should be when I search for "Food Club oats":

 

 

Here's a magnificent sale, I don't know how they stay in business with this kind of discounting:

 

 

Here's an even better one, the kind of sale I think every business owner wants to be able to run:

 

 

Because Acme and Giant Eagle are almost always similar or even identical on price, and even on selection (in the sense that they are both full-service groceries with all the various specialty counters that you won't necessarily find at Marc's, Aldi, or Save-a-Lot, with Dave's somewhere in the middle), I could see Kroger wanting to acquire Acme for a ready-made local competitor to Giant Eagle, if they aren't going to go for the mega-merger and buy Giant Eagle out.  (Per Wikipedia, Giant Eagle has 474 locations 216 supermarkets, 202 GetGo stores, 56 Ricker's stores; Kroger's locations number 2,868, including 2,726 supermarkets and 142 jewelers (Q2 2021).  Acme is obviously significantly smaller, only 16 stores.)

 

In my experience, the one place where Acme really shines is custom work and catered events.  They catered my wedding at Stan Hywet, and I've been to many local corporate events that they catered as well.  We've used their bakery and florist/balloon sections for many of our kids' birthday parties, too.

^Great sale on corn! Lol

Quote

Northeast Ohio has several successful family-run grocers, from Dave’s Markets to Constantino’s Markets to Zagara’s Marketplace in Cleveland Heights, but statistically, only 10 percent of family-owned businesses survive to the third generation. That success rate dwindles to 3 to 4 percent by the fourth generation, Jeff Heinen said.

 

Three fourth-generation Heinens – Tom’s daughters Kim and Kelsey, and Jeff’s son, Jake, all in their 20s – have already expressed interest in joining the family business. “Our goal is to remain privately owned and privately controlled,” Jeff says.

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2019/01/heinens-celebrates-90-years-in-the-grocery-business-how-the-grocer-thrives-in-cleveland-and-beyond.html

 

 

Heinen's should be safe, at least for now. I like Kroger, but losing Heinen's would be a horrid tragedy.

 

Marc's is a wild card. They are privately owned by one man, Marc Glassman, who has a not-very-nice reputation and he's got to be getting up there in age. Unlike Heinen's, they have high turnover and I can't imagine employees are super-loyal to the place or anything like that. They also have a lot of stores. But they are in a different segment of the market altogether from Kroger and Heinen's and Giant Eagle and Acme. When I was a kid we barely considered it a grocery store, more like a Big Lots or a Discount Drug Mart. They sold a lot of closeouts. (I grew up near the original store which was called Bernie Shulman's before Marc bought the chain from Bernie, and it was definitely not a grocery store in those days) They used to not even have meat. But they did spend money growing their meat and produce departments the past 10 or so years.

Edited November 7, 20213 yr by mu2010