Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

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CalItalian
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by CalItalian »

Bagels wrote: November 7th, 2020, 7:15 pm
ClownLoach wrote: November 2nd, 2020, 7:22 am I've been in a few times and I find the assortment to be interesting to say the least... But I think that the bigger picture is that this is intended to be a e-commerce facility first. These stores are intentionally being operated for months only to do e-commerce sales for home delivery. During that time they have been tweaking the assortment, adding and subtracting items as they learn what customers want in this location. I do not believe that this was because of COVID-19 as the store was built out last year. I believe this is their strategy for operating and they will continue to build out and operate e-commerce only to learn the neighborhood then open their doors for additional walk in business. They have several more all built out and employees in the Irvine location are training there for the store they have been assigned nearby in Long Beach or Fullerton. For months I have ordered from this store and I have not experienced a single problem, item substitution, or late delivery. They have been absolutely flawless.
Amazon didn't begin the build out of the Irvine location until spring (presumably, COVID delayed construction). The time span between that of when construction was complete & the store opened to the general public was significantly less than it was in Woodland Hills. My best guess is that the gap exists for trial and training purposes; in the near future, stores will likely open with no gap.

And I don't believe e-commerce is as much a driving force behind the concept. Remember: these are beautiful stores, with upscale interiors featuring high-end fixtures, and a heavy emphasis o prepared foods. They're also located in high-traffic, high-rent areas. Think about it... less than 2.5 miles from this store, the former VONS (Haggen) in Tustin's Larwin Square has sat vacant and available for 5+ years (in an otherwise thriving shopping center). Amazon could've paid close to half the rent (not an insignificant expense around here), saved significantly in a buildout, operated it as a "box store" ... and still served the same geographic area via e-commerce.
storewanderer wrote: October 31st, 2020, 7:16 pm
What is with that egg pricing down there in SoCal? Milk gallon is about the same range as NorCal except Safeway varies by store with some at 2.98 everyday and others at 3.50 everyday (Raleys is 2.98 everyday at all stores; Save Mart is varied pricing by store). NorCal Safeway large eggs are 1.98-2.45 per dozen depending on store (various prices in between).

Here in NV, WinCo and Wal Mart (and some Smiths) have been running large dozen eggs at 0.80-0.95 for the past four or five months. I think the system "feed" price at Smiths is 1.59 but most stores are lower due to their price surveys of Wal Marts.

Where does the Amazon milk appear to be coming from? Whole Foods private label milk in NorCal is bottled by Clover.
Wholesale egg pricing in California (especially Southern) have trended about twice that of the national average since the humanity law was passed. That said, wholesale prices have settled in the past two years (sans that during the grocery rush following COVID) to around $1.50-$1.75 for a dozen large eggs - yet both Ralphs ($3.29) and Albertsons/VONS ($3.99) haven't lowered their shelf prices, although sales are pretty frequent. Food4Less actually has the lowest everyday pricing ($1.59, up from $1.49). Aldi was selling them (at a loss) for less than a $1, but as business improved, prices are now at $2.29, although sales around $1.69 are frequent.

While I mentioned that Amazon has the lowest prices on staples, Food4Less actually beats them ($1.69 for eggs, $2.49 for all varieties of milk), although an insignificant number of people considering Amazon would shop at F4L. Not to get off topic, but Kroger recently brought back the Mountain Dairy brand for F4L's milk and eggs, with the Kroger brand selling at a premium (of course, they're the same product).

I'll have to check up on the milk, but Whole Foods was using Dean's last time I checked.
I have never been in a California Aldi where eggs are more than $1.59/dozen. I was in Aldi in Menifee today. $1.49/dozen which is the highest I've seen recently. Was $1.39/dozen last week. Aldi Grand Opening in Poway last week eggs were .79/dozen.

The only competition the Aldi in Menifee has is a Super Target across the street and a Ralphs and a Barons market across the freeway.

The one item that has gone up in Aldi is milk. Whole milk was $2.97 gallon today. But 2% had a crazy price of $3.78 a gallon.
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by Bagels »

I made my third visit this evening, my first using the “Dash” cart. It was pretty cool - the cart is heavy due to the cameras and sensors within it, and you’re asked to limit the number of items purchased with it (otherwise use a traditional cart). It instantly recognized everything I put in it... even produce with no tags. I assume the cameras identified these items.

More changes in pricing strategy: as I mentioned in my previous posting, Amazon guaranteed the lowest price on milk, eggs, and several other staple items (I never read the fine print but I’m sure they comped the items if you could find a lower price.). As of today, the those signs were gone, and the prices on these items are now the same as Ralph’s, Albertson’s/VONS and Stater Bros. (For example, milk was 2.66/gallon for all varieties but is now 2.89-3.29 depending on the variety purchased...same as everyone else).

BTW, the code on the (skim) milk I looked up shows it’s made by Morningstar Farms out of Texas.
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: November 30th, 2020, 11:07 pm I made my third visit this evening, my first using the “Dash” cart. It was pretty cool - the cart is heavy due to the cameras and sensors within it, and you’re asked to limit the number of items purchased with it (otherwise use a traditional cart). It instantly recognized everything I put in it... even produce with no tags. I assume the cameras identified these items.

More changes in pricing strategy: as I mentioned in my previous posting, Amazon guaranteed the lowest price on milk, eggs, and several other staple items (I never read the fine print but I’m sure they comped the items if you could find a lower price.). As of today, the those signs were gone, and the prices on these items are now the same as Ralph’s, Albertson’s/VONS and Stater Bros. (For example, milk was 2.66/gallon for all varieties but is now 2.89-3.29 depending on the variety purchased...same as everyone else).

BTW, the code on the (skim) milk I looked up shows it’s made by Morningstar Farms out of Texas.
How is it cost effective to truck milk from Texas to California...? I know CA gets a lot higher costs on most things but CA produces a ton of dairy and seems to be able to be competitive on those items production-wise...
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by ClownLoach »

So after talking to a Manager at the Irvine store, over 70% of their sales are e-commerce, either delivery or pickup. As a result they continue to delay the retail openings of other upcoming locations as the e-commerce side is the most important part of the business and they're happy to run dark for as many months as the lease allows before they have to open up the doors. Retail is not the priority, basically the in person sales are intended to offset the increased rent of a urban shopping center location versus remote warehouses. With the limited occupancy requirements at most times they have more employees than customers because of the heavy delivery volume. Nearly every employee is working on an Amazon Flex schedule (look up how that works) but as a result they have over 500 employees at this location. Only about half of them take a shift each week (again this is how their Flex program works). This sounds like it is so insanely high volume already that they would be better off going back to a dark store and reconsidering being open to the public. Also they are going to move away from checkout stands entirely to allow for smaller stores and devote more labor to the e-commerce sales. It is very clear that Amazon has finally cracked the code of grocery delivery, and if they can duplicate the success of this site across the country they will prove deadly to the traditional grocery store business. I've heard many come along and say that they're going to be the mass disruptor of that business. Clearly this is really it, once they rework the store to improve the holding capacity to be more warehouse-like to accommodate the incredible volume they're doing without running out of stock due to their limited shelf capacity.
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by storewanderer »

Somehow they have to reign in the number of SKUs available for immediate for efficiency purposes. The conventional grocery store is over-SKUed. That over-SKUed situation makes the conventional store higher overhead to operate, difficult to stock, more difficult to pick orders from, difficult to stay in stock on the popular items, etc.

Customers accept limited SKUs from retailers like Costco, Trader Joe's, Aldi, etc. But so far conventional grocers have had an expectation from customers to have a very wide variety of SKUs with too many different brands/similar types of the same items. For this Amazon format to work somehow the SKUs for immediate delivery need to be "chopped." Of course, Amazon can get whatever slow moving SKU you want out of a warehouse but that will take some time (and perhaps added cost for it).
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: January 3rd, 2021, 11:26 am Somehow they have to reign in the number of SKUs available for immediate for efficiency purposes. The conventional grocery store is over-SKUed. That over-SKUed situation makes the conventional store higher overhead to operate, difficult to stock, more difficult to pick orders from, difficult to stay in stock on the popular items, etc.

Customers accept limited SKUs from retailers like Costco, Trader Joe's, Aldi, etc. But so far conventional grocers have had an expectation from customers to have a very wide variety of SKUs with too many different brands/similar types of the same items. For this Amazon format to work somehow the SKUs for immediate delivery need to be "chopped." Of course, Amazon can get whatever slow moving SKU you want out of a warehouse but that will take some time (and perhaps added cost for it).
I agree, and these are smaller stores with very basic, bare bones fixtures. The assortment keeps changing every visit as they continue to adjust. Where they're winning is the dark store strategy - they can start with the sales mix data from existing Amazon orders in the market plus what they can learn from the nearest Whole Foods. They run in this environment as long as they can before the lease mandates opening (most leases require open doors within a reasonable time after construction is complete) and keep tweaking the assortment for the local customer. Then when it's finally open doors they adjust again to learn what the in person shopper wants. But they know that their primary customer is online...
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by J-Man »

Another new Amazon Fresh just opened in Whittier, in a former OSH store. This is their fifth store in the LA/OC area.
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by Bagels »

Some observations on the Irvine store, now that it has been open for several months:

-- There were hardly any customers within the store on a Saturday afternoon (but plenty of employees were shopping / fulfilling orders). In contrast, when the store first opened, it was common to wait an hour or more to get in. Heck, even my local Albertsons (one of its lowest volume stores in SoCal) has more customers. But as we discussed earlier, the primary purpose of these stores is likely to fulfill customer order.

-- They've raised prices on pretty much everything. For example, a pound of red delicious apples is now $1.99/lb. (previously 99c/lb.)- higher than Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons. A three-pack of romaine hearts was $1.99, now $3.99 (slightly cheaper than Ralphs & Albertsons/Vons; Target and Walmart both sell it for $1.99). Previously, they guaranteed the lowest price in town on milk, or it was free. A gallon was selling for $2.66 vs. $3 at Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons... the latter haven't raised their prices, but Amazon is now charging $3.49.

-- That said, there are still some good bargains. Sweet potatoes were 55c/lb. (vs. $1.99 at Ralphs & Albertsons/Vons). Bananas are still 15c each, and large pizza slices are still $1.79 each. Nicely trimmed chicken breasts are still $1.99/lb.

-- They had a large variety of pre-packaged individual baked goods and hot food bar items. We tried a slice of pizza and a petite cheese cake. Both were REALLY good. Costco's pizza tastes like cheap frozen pizza (yet they sell a ton of it)... this taste like premium.
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

Bagels wrote: May 23rd, 2021, 10:57 am -- There were hardly any customers within the store on a Saturday afternoon (but plenty of employees were shopping / fulfilling orders). In contrast, when the store first opened, it was common to wait an hour or more to get in. Heck, even my local Albertsons (one of its lowest volume stores in SoCal) has more customers. But as we discussed earlier, the primary purpose of these stores is likely to fulfill customer order.

-- They've raised prices on pretty much everything. For example, a pound of red delicious apples is now $1.99/lb. (previously 99c/lb.)- higher than Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons. A three-pack of romaine hearts was $1.99, now $3.99 (slightly cheaper than Ralphs & Albertsons/Vons; Target and Walmart both sell it for $1.99). Previously, they guaranteed the lowest price in town on milk, or it was free. A gallon was selling for $2.66 vs. $3 at Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons... the latter haven't raised their prices, but Amazon is now charging $3.49.
Kind of sounds like Fresh & Easy all over again, and we all know how that went. :lol:
We all thought Tesco was going to change everything...
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Re: Amazon Fresh Irvine Now Open

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 23rd, 2021, 2:01 pm
Bagels wrote: May 23rd, 2021, 10:57 am -- There were hardly any customers within the store on a Saturday afternoon (but plenty of employees were shopping / fulfilling orders). In contrast, when the store first opened, it was common to wait an hour or more to get in. Heck, even my local Albertsons (one of its lowest volume stores in SoCal) has more customers. But as we discussed earlier, the primary purpose of these stores is likely to fulfill customer order.

-- They've raised prices on pretty much everything. For example, a pound of red delicious apples is now $1.99/lb. (previously 99c/lb.)- higher than Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons. A three-pack of romaine hearts was $1.99, now $3.99 (slightly cheaper than Ralphs & Albertsons/Vons; Target and Walmart both sell it for $1.99). Previously, they guaranteed the lowest price in town on milk, or it was free. A gallon was selling for $2.66 vs. $3 at Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons... the latter haven't raised their prices, but Amazon is now charging $3.49.
Kind of sounds like Fresh & Easy all over again, and we all know how that went. :lol:
We all thought Tesco was going to change everything...
Also note they are changing Amazon Go to Amazon Fresh essentially scrapping the Go concept.

But they sure caused a lot of pure play retailers to throw a bunch of resources at a pie in the sky "just walk out" checkout technology. 7-Eleven, etc.
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