Grocery stores bogged down with delivery requests
The Journal finds that while grocery stores are getting bogged down with delivery requests and customers may be put on waiting lists, restaurants are feeling the opposite effect.
As usual during crisis times, COVID-19 is bringing out the crooks, trying to falsely collect donations or sell fraudulent goods. (Even as I’m looking at this item in Metro, the animated ad banner above is trying to sell me hand sanitizer and wipes with the catchy phrase “En cas de pandémie, cliquez ici!”)
Ephraim 12:04 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
I think in the case of restaurants that some people are worried that someone sick may come into work.
Supermarkets may have no choice but to go to delivery/pickup in the next while. It’s certainly a lot more controlled to have a limited number of people in the store doing the shopping for people. Of course, they need to get Amazon efficient with pulling items… It’s not really efficient to have one person pull an order, when you can have a trolley with 6 baskets and go through the store pulling and dropping into the boxes. Oh and maybe they should start putting those orders into paper boxes. The boxes are fully recyclable, clean and easy to transport. You pull up, load in the marked boxes and go. Even on pick up, you can call into the store, they can pull the prepared boxes and put them on the sidewalk for you to pick up and go.
Tim S 14:09 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
I did a pick up order this week, it was easy, and I was surprised at how few other people were doing it. While I waited for them to bring the order to the car I watched people flow in and out of the store, wearing masks, gloves, rubbing hand sanitizer. I actually almost didn’t do the pick up option because I worried about taking away a slot from a more vulnerable person, but only one other person had an order in the 15-20 minutes while I was there.
Chris 14:54 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
I went to a grocery store yesterday and they now refuse cash. Anyone else seeing this?
When stores won’t trade food for money, we could indeed be in for a rough time. The
unbanked should not have to choose between starvation and theft, but it may yet come to that. 🙁
GC 15:16 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
Why be worried that a restaurant worker might come in sick, but not that a grocery store worker might? (I realize people aren’t always rational, but I’m not sure why one would be more dangerous than the other.)
david100 16:10 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
I’ve been ordering out almost every meal, to try to keep the money flowing to the restaurants in my small way. My absolute worst fear is that the result of these measures is a giant wave of restaurant bankruptcies, and the face and character of the city permanently changes in a way even worse than it has been reformed by our terrible and suicidally culturally destructive land use laws.
Chris 16:20 on 2020-03-21 Permalink
david100, once this is over, people will again want to eat in restos, so when demand returns, so will supply (of restaurants), though it of course might be different restos as some go bust.
Mitchell 07:45 on 2020-03-22 Permalink
As much as I would like to support the restaurants, it’s expensive to do so for each meal. If the stores can’t deliver, that’s going to be a real problem. Even if we stock up, we’re going to run out.