I’ve been buying groceries twice a week online from various U.K. supermarkets for well over a decade. Not everything always works - I remember a time in 2006 when they didn’t turn up in the prescribed slot, we left the house then they phoned irate when they arrived 90 minutes after the end of the delivery slot. Obviously there can be substitutions too, sometimes they’re fine, sometimes they aren’t
But on the whole of just works. Even at the start of the pandemic when demand was high, regular customers like me were prioritised. The impression I get is this isn’t the case in the US?
Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years. Like the healthcare debate with less politics. "kroger should buy some vans, hire more people, and start a website" is pretty much the end of it. (I assume krogers is a supermarket)
>Yeah it's so weird seeing americans treat this as some kind of Hard Problem when it's been part of our daily life for 15+ years
As a non-American who is disproportionately aware of US culture and issues even though I've only been there a couple of times, I think it's part of a general pattern.
My pet theory is that the combination of the USA's size, relative geographical isolation, historically strong economy, and youngish history have led to a critical mass of its population being completely unaware that there are certain things that can be done differently and arguably better, as they are done elsewhere.
Most of the developed World is composed of either small neighbouring countries between which ideas are more easily shared, countries with long histories and limited resources that have had the need to improve their efficiencies and learned from their pasts, or countries who had to make concerted efforts to either become develop or recover after catastrophic war. Meanwhile, the population of the USA (and to a lesser extent Canada, and maybe Australia and NZ) has had little exposure to alternative ways of doing things, and no motivation to do so—everything is fine.
Off the top of my head, I can think of the following things that are done better outside the US but most Americans are unaware that alternatives are even possible: e-payment methods and cheap bank transfers, home insulation, vote counting, prices including sales tax, intersections (roundabouts vs 4-way STOPs), electrical plugs, kick-resistant front doors, punch-resistant interior walls, toilets that don't need a plunger handy, SSNs not being a de-facto immutable password, etc.
I've sometimes been tempted to compile a detailed list of articles on each of these things on a blog, but not being American I feel it would be very unfair and would seem gratuitously condescending on my part. I hope this doesn't come across as dismissive or an attempt at a flame-war, it's just my observation. I have nothing against the USA, and I am absolutely not implying that no good ideas come from the USA! Many great ideas were born in the USA, and are then adopted or adapted by other countries. The difference is that the flow doesn't seem to go the other way.
I am glad you picked things that affect all of the US and not things that only work in dense areas. Since at least some of those dense area issues are [half] solved in the east coast and SF/the valley get so many things first.
Public transport isn’t amazing between Boston/Montreal to Philadelphia/NYC to DC. However i still get a bit shocked when I go to places outside cities in parts of America where even buses are scant. Forget any other type of public transportation. Even Amtrak barely has any routes.
Nyc is the only city in the world with proper 24/7 subways. I have had the opposite experience of being surprised how bad the times are for subways in major cities across the world. 24/7 isn’t needed, but it’s surprising how cities stop public transport [relatively] early. My experience may be out dated now. East Asia was the worst when it came to this so maybe Europe isn’t so bad in this reheard.
I think NYCs metro only works 24/7 because there’s enough 4 track to allow two tracks to close for maintenance overnight. If you don’t close a stretch of track how do you maintain it?
"punch-resistant interior walls"
This one is always so funny to me. Coming from the EU, I don't even have a "punch the wall" reflex baked into me, at all. Punch the screen, throw my phone, sure, even though I don't do it.
From a former line of work, many US friends used to punch their walls from time to time. None of my EU friends ever even tried or came close to.
I did my first online delivery grocery purchase in 2006 in America. It’s a huge place. Can’t lump us all together.
Another example. I don’t believe I’ve seen a gun in my life (at most one time) except in the holster of cops. I will sometimes come across conversations where people call out others as frauds etc if they don’t know or understands guns. As if that’s something all Americans are familiar with.
Same here, also in UK, but exclusively with Tesco - the whole thing runs like clockwork!
Back at the start, I used to get all sorts of bizarre substitutions, but now I can't even remember the last time I got anything random.
My only real beef is that the grocery pickers don't always pick the best perishable items - for example, sometimes I'll get herbs that are already starting to rot, or ginger with mould on it. It's rare enough that it's not a big issue, especially given the benefit of not having to spend time doing the shopping in person.
Oh, my other beef, with Tesco specifically is how CRAP and primitive their website is. It's so embarrassingly slow - every.single.action takes multiple seconds to complete. Thankfully the Android app is much better, and very recently they have finally started to improve the UX a bit.
I tried doing online deliveries while at university back in 07-09 and found the whole ordeal so rubbish that i've never gone back to it even during the pandemic. Glad to hear they smoothed it out a little.
I wonder if the US is better or worse for using middleman start-up services where as picking nad delivery here is traditionally done in house.
I once ordered black pudding and received a two pack of chocolate sponge puddings. I think it was Tesco. That was genuinely funny though, and in all my experience has been good.
Also, call me a frugal jerk, but I spent about 2 years adding dots to my Gmail address to get £15 off as a new customer offer every time. It got a bit awkward when the same delivery driver had to give me the 'new customer' spiel and said he was sure he'd been here before.
But on the whole of just works. Even at the start of the pandemic when demand was high, regular customers like me were prioritised. The impression I get is this isn’t the case in the US?