From my own experience, it's annoying the first few times you do it but after a while it gets easier. One cool thing is you can have a list of things you regularly buy and easily add them all to your basket. And they know it's harder to get inspiration online so they try very hard to suggest new things to stop you from getting bored.

Grocery shopping in a browser UI can be a decent experience but will probably never be as clear and convenient as seeing the actual item, especially for non-prepackaged (meat, fish, produce, floral, etc.)

Convenience - online shopping requires planning ahead and being home in a time window to receive delivery. For the homebound it is no issue, but for most working people it's easier to just stop by the store on the way home.

Delivery is nice too, but the picking is what I really hate. Showing up, picking up a box, and leaving would be fine too. However, if delivery is the main option, I'll take it.

The fact that I strongly dislike Tesco and STILL just set up an account for grocery delivery so I can pay them to pick groceries and bring them to me, because I hate going shopping so much, suggests that this service is needed by at least some people.

I also wanted to use buymie.eu, but I have an aversion to services that would work perfectly well as websites but insist on an app instead.

I order groceries online a lot. My personal opinion about why this UX wouldn’t work well is that people want to feel like they made an optimal choice. Like when you go to the store to buy an apple, do you just pick the first one? Or do you pick the organic variety that looks freshest? Or maybe you go in for an apple buy decide to get grapes because they look better. There are a few staples I always buy, but generally my grocery purchases are more deliberate. From what I see at the store, many people exhibit such behavior.

I live in the UK and most of the online stores let you pick the delivery slot after filling the basket, which is an infuriatingly poor UX, given the current circumstances.

"Excellent interface"

We have built a streamlined interface that is uniquely designed to handle grocery shopping. We believe that there is a fundamental difference in shopping for groceries online and the way we shop for other consumer merchandise (such as clothes or books). Being fast, intuitive and discoverable are the overarching goals.

"you should seriously consider delivery"

At a later date, perhaps. "Logistical nightmare" is absolutely right. When/if we do delivery, I want to treat it as an outsourced add-on priced at/near cost (which will still mean a hefty delivery charge in low population density areas).

"I also love the possibilities for the store itself"

Absolutely. In addition to your suggestions, consider the long-term opportunities related to merchandise packaging and private label goods. Customers are no longer walking the aisles making buying decisions based on physical packaging. The right packaging/private label strategy (think Trader Joe's on steroids) could eventually lead to some amazing gross margins.

Here, most of the supermarkets now do their online fullfillment from warehouses, not the shop floor, using purpose built delivery vehicals. One, Ocado (who are doing amazing tech work with robots and planning) are entirely online, while also whitelabelling their logistics for another supermarket.

On the whole the quality is perfect, it's not "bottom of the barrel", fruit is fresh, things tend to have long dates on them. While you do get substitutions from time to time, they seem to have got rarer as they have got better at predicting demand.

The main downside for my wife, who insists on shopping in person, is that you don't get the really good deals on stuff, as it's always on the short-dated stuff they want to get off the shelves.

[1]: http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Business-News/UK-is-biggest...

When I was in France this this summer, I noticed an E.Leclerc supermarkets where you could purchase your groceries online, only you had to pick them up yourself at a drive-through counter. The groceries were already packed in bags, so I can imagine you can save some time there.

I did not try these services, though, I like to see/smell/feel my food before I buy it.

Even once the pandemic is over I'll be sticking to online. I don't have a car so getting to my nearest supermarket was a 2 mile walk. THis was fine going but was a pain walking back 2 miles with lots of shopping, especially in the rain.

Now I can just choose what I want in 10 minutes at the computer rather than 90 mins I would lose on a shopping trip.

I don't think online delivery has changed much since the days of Webvan. When I order on Instacart, Postmates, etc, I get the worst produce, wrong cheese, and just like in the article -- a single banana instead of 1 bunch. Like others have said, the apps need a lot of work, particularly around out of stock items.

Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the lines at the stores were long due to social distancing and overall panic, so I went back to online delivery. The problem was that no where delivered and times were weeks out if anything was available at all! The delivery companies weren't even working the one time in history they should shine and take the grocery market by the horns.

The upside to all this is I ended up going to locally run stores, bodegas, and farmer's markets, which didn't have everything I wanted because they are small, but going to 2 or 3 isn't hat much of a hassle.

As a related side note, my elderly parents did "curb side pickup" for groceries out in Nevada. My mom told me that she often got to "try new foods". It made me laugh, but made me think that for the immuno-vulnerable, do they want to go on a forced diet selected by a low-wage personal shopper?

I mean, this is HN, why do people still go to the grocery store instead of using a delivery app? Price? Browsing an app is slow? Item availability? Time? The app sucks? Orders always come wrong?

1) You're depending on & supporting an oppressed segment of the labor force (people who need multiple jobs to make ends meet, because no 'gig economy' startup pays a living wage), 2) You're fighting with "surges" of use and paying wildly varying prices, with wildly varying levels of service, 3) You don't even get the items you're looking for half the time (in my experience), 4) It's more expensive!, 5) you don't actually need groceries delivered to you instantly.

Since COVID-19 I have switched to buying from local businesses and getting food from Co-ops and farm shares (and growing my own). I can schedule regular deliveries of produce to my door in bulk (in reusable containers), which not only reduces waste, it actually helps me plan my week/month better, I still get all the things I wanted, the price is fair, and I'm helping local farms and businesses.

I'm pretty sure the reason most people don't do this is that they're lazy, selfish, greedy and entitled. My evidence is the last two weekends I've ventured out into the world to look at apartments to rent, with the occasional jaunt to a hiking trail. I found virtually nobody was wearing a mask or socially distancing, unless they were forced to by a greeter in front of a business like a grocery store (many customers were trying to walk in without a mask, and thankfully were rebuffed). Many probably could have ordered online the same way I did, but would rather the immediacy of 'do it yourself' - even during a pandemic.

Sadly it's the poorest and most vulnerable people that need grocery delivery the most, because they have the hardest time getting to a store. A poor person in a food desert may need to spend over two hours round trip on transportation in order to get food, and an elderly person may just not be mobile enough. I doubt we would ever fund a public delivery service for them (though in theory the postal service could).

We usually still go to the store, but use this service when we have a large amount of shopping to do as it just is... convenient. Instead of driving to and running around in the store looking for all the stuff we need and then carry it out to the car and into the home, we just gather around the iPad in the comfort of our living room and order what we want. The day after it shows up at the door. It's fantastic.