I have a great memory of getting milk delivered to our home and pizza delivery from Pizza Crave Saturday night was not something to sneeze at. You make a phone call and one hour later the nicest delivery man with a perpetual smile delivers yummy pizza to your doorstep.
I am a big fan of Amazon and Amazon Prime for many reasons, especially the ease of returns. If you aren’t aware of Prime, for a yearly fee Amazon will ship for free any item that says ‘Prime.’ Recently Amazon offered slower delivery for a $1 Audio book credit. Amazon Prime will support the product and in some cases Amazon will cover a return even if the vendor doesn’t. Being a Prime member also allows one to order from Amazon Pantry.
Our family uses Tide PODS for our laundry. I stumbled upon the item on Amazon and ordered it from Amazon Pantry, which carries household items like cleaning products, pet food, and toiletries and food–pastas, rice, sauces, ice tea mixes, trash bags and more. The Amazon Pantry is on the Amazon website and items are added every day. You will need a Prime account.
What’s really nice about Amazon Pantry is there are built-in coupons on the items and there is a flat fee for shipping Pantry items. Prime members get up to 45 pounds of home goods shipped directly to their doorstep within four days for a $6 fee. EBay and Zappos were but infants in the online universe, and it was already obvious that the online shipping would one day send your groceries to your doorstep, precisely as ordered.
Amazon Pantry has something called Subscriptions. At the Garb home we will go through a box of Tide PODS about every other month. One can subscribe to these items and they will be delivered without having to go on Amazon and order. This can be really amazing for those items that you really don’t want to run out of, or in my case, have to lift boxes with my bad knees. The delivery comes via UPS or on Sundays via USPS. The subscription can be cancelled, Amazon will ask if you want the items from the subscription in case you want to skip a month.
Shopping from home can be done at any time and you will not have to fight with your kids who is going to schlep the groceries into the home.
But remember, there is still no way on Amazon to get cheese from Ma’adan, meat from Grand and Essex or great fruit from Cedar Market. There is something to be said about walking the aisles in all of the terrific supermarkets we have in Teaneck area. I sampled some sushi from Glatt Express. Fresh to order.
Today most local supermarkets are getting behind the delivery option. With Grand and Essex you can call or email and have fresh Glatt Kosher meat and foods delivered straight to your door–in a box–by an amazing friendly delivery man.
I am sure that soon mom and pop stores will have delivery options. Google the local supermarkets or inquire if they have or are building the order and delivery options.
Delivery options also means more jobs are created by people who need to ship and deliver the food. Web developers need to build the websites. Owners of great products for items like the ‘Cheese guy’ might be delivered to any home in America via Amazon. Not sure if this is an Amazon option yet, but it might be there some day. Consumers will also be able to get coupons and deals without having to cut coupons and schlep into the store.
Every Thursday night, Randy delivers fresh flowers. Randy also sends out an email with challahs, salads and other items he will deliver with the flowers. Randy had this idea without even knowing how consumers would benefit from a weekly delivery as with Amazon subscriptions. Randy’s delivery has not decreased business but on the contrary Randy combined fresh flowers with items that consumers wouldn’t be able to get to without delivery. All delivered to your home on Thursday night.
If you look real close at the apartments behind the 7-11, they still have the slot for the milk man. I had to explain this to my 10-year-old who asked if the Milk Man could deliver chocolate milk made with soy. Amazon you have your first request!
If you have any questions or comment Shneur Garb can be reached by [email protected]. Shneur is the CEO at The Garb IT Consulting Group in Teaneck, N.J.
By Shneur Garb
