Ever since grocery delivery started, it has become commonplace for people to order their groceries. Instead of taking time out of your day to go to the grocery store, you can pay to have your groceries delivered to you in just a few hours. I didn’t think it could get any more convenient than this, but recently many companies have started offering 15-minute grocery delivery in New York City. While this seems too good to be true, it also seems to have downsides. There are many people who are not pleased with this service.
Deborah Weiswig is the founder and chief executive of Coresight, a company that studies the grocery delivery market. “Online grocery shopping accounts for 12 percent of all grocery sales nationwide, up from about 2 percent before the pandemic,” she said. There are multiple downsides to almost instant delivery in New York. Local supermarkets and bodegas need business, and these new services are likely to affect their business and could even run them out of business in the future, depending on how popular instant delivery becomes. Another issue: There are already so many people on the streets, whether it be in cars, on bikes, or by foot, who are delivering with regular grocery delivery services, restaurant delivery, or delivery from regular stores like walmart. Eventually, there may be too many people in the street doing deliveries, which could cause overcrowding. Also, the plethora of “dark stores” stores used to make these deliveries happen, are taking away from local retail space, according to Gale Brewer, the Manhattan Borough president of the Bodega and Small Business Association.
Aside from these issues, many people simply don’t think 15-minute deliveries are necessary. Why would someone need something that desperately from the grocery store within 15 minutes? And if they do, why can’t they walk over to their local bodega and get it themselves? Good question Another question: will these delivery companies be able to keep up with orders when orders increase? “Buyk, which is financed with $46 million from investors, has grown to more than 1,350 orders a day since it started in August and predicted it would hit 20,000 orders a day by the end of the year, said Rodion Shishkov, its co-founder,” (New York Times).
It will be very interesting to see what happens to these instant grocery delivery companies in the future.
I think grocery delivery is a trend that has unfortunately increased due to COVID. I think it is important to have the option of delivered groceries for people who may be disabled or have health problems that make it difficult for them to get to the grocery store. However, I think it also has the potential to increase laziness and overcrowd our already very crowded streets.