stealthyeliminator
Regular Member
One day I thought, is there anything that could eliminate a company as large, dispursed, wealthy and as stable as, say, Walmart, purely through market competition and without use of politics, policy, or other forms of coercion. Something that could simply make Walmart obsolete.
And so I thought, what problems does Walmart have, and how could we solve those problems? I made a list of things I hated (or disliked, at least) about Walmart, and tried to envision something that would solve those problems, while (maybe, I'm just dreaming here) remaining profitable.
What I came up with is a grocery store, with no store front. No, this is not a place you go to to shop for groceries. At this grocery store, you shop entirely online. You make your list, search for the items, add them to your cart, and simply go to the store to pick up your groceries, pre-packaged, via a pickup lane, without having to step foot inside the gocery store. The benefits of being able to shop online, assuming a well designed site, are plentiful. No sick people, no crowds, no walking from one end of the store to the next trying to find what you're looking for, no long check out lines, no finding a parking spot, shop from the comfort of your sofa, suggested items (add sphagetti to your cart, obviously you might need sphagetti sauce, too!), repeating items (automatically add milk to list every week), automatically add items based on expiration dates (buy a loaf of bread that expires in 2 weeks, and in 2 weeks add another loaf to list), recipie lists with option to automatically add all items in recipie to cart, add inventory of cooking utensils and add utensil requirements to recipies so that if someone adds recipie items to cart you can automatically suggest corresponding utinsils that consumer doesn't already own.... Bout to head home from a long day at work and realize there's nothing at home to cook? Who wants to go to the grocery store after a long hard day? Today, you'll end up just running through a drive-thru and getting greasy hamburger. With this, you could pull up an app on your phone, hit recipies, sort by difficulty (we're tired, remember?), find something you like, hit add, and by the time you get to the store it's packaged and ready to go, fast as a drive-thru, but you get a real meal.
So, have people running around packaging up orders? Maybe, or maybe make the entire store automated. Assembly line-style. The grocery store just becomes a giant, web-enabled vending machine. The idea would be that you could eliminate never-ending salary costs and replace them with up front equipment costs. Would it cost more to maintain the equipment than pay a half a dozen guys and a half a dozen gals to stock shelfs and run check-out machines? Perhaps. But, maybe someday... There would be no store front to maintain, wouldn't have to make room for people to walk, or stock shelves in such a way that people can browse, etc.
Now seeking venture capitalists. Just kidding...
I meant to put this in "the lounge" SORRY!!!
And so I thought, what problems does Walmart have, and how could we solve those problems? I made a list of things I hated (or disliked, at least) about Walmart, and tried to envision something that would solve those problems, while (maybe, I'm just dreaming here) remaining profitable.
What I came up with is a grocery store, with no store front. No, this is not a place you go to to shop for groceries. At this grocery store, you shop entirely online. You make your list, search for the items, add them to your cart, and simply go to the store to pick up your groceries, pre-packaged, via a pickup lane, without having to step foot inside the gocery store. The benefits of being able to shop online, assuming a well designed site, are plentiful. No sick people, no crowds, no walking from one end of the store to the next trying to find what you're looking for, no long check out lines, no finding a parking spot, shop from the comfort of your sofa, suggested items (add sphagetti to your cart, obviously you might need sphagetti sauce, too!), repeating items (automatically add milk to list every week), automatically add items based on expiration dates (buy a loaf of bread that expires in 2 weeks, and in 2 weeks add another loaf to list), recipie lists with option to automatically add all items in recipie to cart, add inventory of cooking utensils and add utensil requirements to recipies so that if someone adds recipie items to cart you can automatically suggest corresponding utinsils that consumer doesn't already own.... Bout to head home from a long day at work and realize there's nothing at home to cook? Who wants to go to the grocery store after a long hard day? Today, you'll end up just running through a drive-thru and getting greasy hamburger. With this, you could pull up an app on your phone, hit recipies, sort by difficulty (we're tired, remember?), find something you like, hit add, and by the time you get to the store it's packaged and ready to go, fast as a drive-thru, but you get a real meal.
So, have people running around packaging up orders? Maybe, or maybe make the entire store automated. Assembly line-style. The grocery store just becomes a giant, web-enabled vending machine. The idea would be that you could eliminate never-ending salary costs and replace them with up front equipment costs. Would it cost more to maintain the equipment than pay a half a dozen guys and a half a dozen gals to stock shelfs and run check-out machines? Perhaps. But, maybe someday... There would be no store front to maintain, wouldn't have to make room for people to walk, or stock shelves in such a way that people can browse, etc.
Now seeking venture capitalists. Just kidding...
I meant to put this in "the lounge" SORRY!!!
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