Urbx "Skyscraper" Supermarket, Seaport

Why not order at home and wait for your groceries to be delivered? Why would I stand at a kiosk and take the time to order fifty or so items, then have to lug home 2-3 boxes? And I'm guessing glitches within all these moving parts will create some comical scaled delays. The only thing saving this idea is creating a social experience for those who have none.
 
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TC_zoid said:
Why not order at home and wait for your groceries to be delivered? Why would I stand at a kiosk and take the time to order fifty or so items, then have to lug home 2-3 boxes? And I'm guessing glitches within all these moving parts will create some comical scaled delays. The only thing saving this idea is creating a social experience for those who have none.
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My squeaky wheeled shopping cart grocery experience typically takes an hour. Standing a kiosk for a few minutes and waiting for my groceries to come to me sounds pretty cool.
 
Scala said:
My squeaky wheeled shopping cart grocery experience typically takes an hour. Standing a kiosk for a few minutes and waiting for my groceries to come to me sounds pretty cool.
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That's an extremely optimistic clock reading for multi-story vending machinery. Browsing with a cart (YMMV...*I* hate the shopping experience enough that I get my cart filled with my grocery list and get the hell in line in less than 10 mins. most times) at least engages the full sensory experience. Standing still at a pane of glass waiting for a machine to collect it from 6 stories up is idle boredom for most folks. You ever seen someone do the pee-pee dance waiting for a vending machine to take 10 seconds to convert quarters into Snickers? Multiply that feeling exponentially.

Not to mention factoring the *cavernous* public disparity in computer literacy into the avg. time per transaction. Or how objectionable not being able to pre-judge freshness/integrity of perishables factors into the experience (max market share for a la carte grocery delivery is sharply capped by this). Then the technical challenge others have highlighted with extreme non-uniform packaging/handling. It's too variable an audience to rote-automate without extremely clunky and limiting experience.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
That's an extremely optimistic clock reading for multi-story vending machinery. Browsing with a cart (YMMV...*I* hate the shopping experience enough that I get my cart filled with my grocery list and get the hell in line in less than 10 mins. most times) at least engages the full sensory experience. Standing still at a pane of glass waiting for a machine to collect it from 6 stories up is idle boredom for most folks. You ever seen someone do the pee-pee dance waiting for a vending machine to take 10 seconds to convert quarters into Snickers? Multiply that feeling exponentially.

Not to mention factoring the *cavernous* public disparity in computer literacy into the avg. time per transaction. Or how objectionable not being able to pre-judge freshness/integrity of perishables factors into the experience (max market share for a la carte grocery delivery is sharply capped by this). Then the technical challenge others have highlighted with extreme non-uniform packaging/handling. It's too variable an audience to rote-automate without extremely clunky and limiting experience.
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Full sensory experience? More like me stressed out looking at signs above aisles experience. They could probably play a video on the kiosk or I could go on my phone while I wait. I mean... 3/4 minutes is hardly an inconvenience. perishables comes prepacked now a days. Even my tomato’s come in some kind of packing. The people are stupid argument seems like a reach.. I don’t think my grandma would shop here... pee per snickers dance also seems like a reach.
 
Scala said:
Full sensory experience? More like me stressed out looking at signs above aisles experience. They could probably play a video on the kiosk or I could go on my phone while I wait. I mean... 3/4 minutes is hardly an inconvenience. perishables comes prepacked now a days. Even my tomato’s come in some kind of packing. The people are stupid argument seems like a reach.. I don’t think my grandma would shop here... pee per snickers dance also seems like a reach.
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The problem here is ALL experiences are highly individualized. And thus far the unimproved apex of market capture for such highly varied experiences is...ye olde supermarket.

How does vending machinery with its very rigid requirements on the experience ever hope to attract self-sustaining biz margins for its niche? Maybe in Japan given their weirdly broad vending machine culture...but not here. It isn't for lack of innovation; it's lack of sustainable biz margins after you've excluded enough of the specific niche behaviors that won't like vending machine shopping. No one's yet been able to pitch a sustainably big tent smaller than a browsing market.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The problem here is ALL experiences are highly individualized. And thus far the unimproved apex of market capture for such highly varied experiences is...ye olde supermarket.

How does vending machinery with its very rigid requirements on the experience ever hope to attract self-sustaining biz margins for its niche? Maybe in Japan given their weirdly broad vending machine culture...but not here. It isn't for lack of innovation; it's lack of sustainable biz margins after you've excluded enough of the specific niche behaviors that won't like vending machine shopping. No one's yet been able to pitch a sustainably big tent smaller than a browsing market.
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I either pick my groceries up or get them delivered and that’s pretty common among my social group. I typically don’t get groceries for the experience. I did know a guy who used to workout at Walmart - so you may be right on niche behaviors
 
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