I work for a grocery delivery company in the UK who deliver from a central warehouse. Some reasons include:
1. If you pick in a store, the picker might find things that are out of stock because walk-in customers have brought them. This means items missing or substituted, which customers don't like.
2. Most people have a way they do grocery shopping already (like driving to wal-mart) and you have to compete with that. People won't pay a big convenience fee. That means you need economies of scale, you need a low cost-per-pick and you need to drive down waste.
(People don't seem to factor the cost of their time or petrol into the cost of grocery shopping. I've seen people who earn $100 an hour but who don't want to pay $10 to save themselves an hour of grocery shopping.)
3. You need a big range. Many customers do one main weekly shop and a smaller 'top up shop'. If your range doesn't have everything they want for their main shop, they'll be driving to wal-mart for those scented candles anyway so wal-mart will get their entire main shop.
1. If you pick in a store, the picker might find things that are out of stock because walk-in customers have brought them. This means items missing or substituted, which customers don't like.
2. Most people have a way they do grocery shopping already (like driving to wal-mart) and you have to compete with that. People won't pay a big convenience fee. That means you need economies of scale, you need a low cost-per-pick and you need to drive down waste.
(People don't seem to factor the cost of their time or petrol into the cost of grocery shopping. I've seen people who earn $100 an hour but who don't want to pay $10 to save themselves an hour of grocery shopping.)
3. You need a big range. Many customers do one main weekly shop and a smaller 'top up shop'. If your range doesn't have everything they want for their main shop, they'll be driving to wal-mart for those scented candles anyway so wal-mart will get their entire main shop.