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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 23, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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contactless pickup economics

Just got back from doing my monthly shopping. Still impressed by the automated pickup boxes and curbside delivery, which made everything so much more efficient (for the customer at least).

Does anyone know if this stuff is actually cost effective for companies? It must suck up a tremendous number of man-hours compared to just sticking stuff on a shelf, which they still have to do anyway; some poor guy spent a good 15 minutes rolling carts of stuff out to my truck and even helping me load. It never took off before wuflu, but was that just inertia or because it didn't make financial sense?

Some well-managed companies like Costco didn't do it at all, but that might reflect their "lure people into the store with loss leaders" business strategy more than any direct cost-benefit analysis. Others like Home Depot went all-in on no-limits free shipping which must be costing them a fortune; I recently bought several breakers and conduit fittings, and each showed up separately in individual Christmas present-size boxes.

Was there just a bunch of panicked malinvestment in 2020 on the assumption that "the future is contactless, Do Something or Amazon will eat you"?

I don't know if it's economical, but I find the whole thing (delivery and pickup) to be frustrating and unappealing.

The first time I tried delivery for groceries, they didn't deliver several of the items I ordered and (a much worse sin in my books) they replaced several of my items with similar ones. This angered me: I didn't want those ones, I wanted the ones I ordered! I don't like that brand! I don't like trying new things! I don't like paying for items I did not select!

I learned that you have to manually un-select the option to replace items with similar ones if the ones I ordered aren't available. The next few times I did delivery I made sure to turn that off, and inevitably on every order 1-4 items would be missing because they weren't available. Which made it impossible to plan meals, since I couldn't be sure I'd have all the ingredients. I'd much rather go to the store, pick out the ones I want, and adapt to shortages while I'm there and can change meal plans.

I recognize that my feelings on this are a bit "Old Man Yells at Cloud", but I liked things better the old way! When people had fewer options!