What would you use Retail Relay for?
If you thought this was an ordinary small town, you thought wrong. To top off ‘green’ dry cleaners and really expensive margaritas, we now have a grocery and other shopping related products delivery service. I saw this poster/flyer on the entrance doorway of the incubator office in front of the Lewis and Clark statue.
Retail Relay is currently in “start-up” mode, so we shall see how cville like this idea. PeaPod, a very large competitor, has seen amazing success in cities like New York. The question remains can Retail Relay replicate this model for a small town with a much lower sales volume.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Tagged as: incubator, retail relay, shopping delivery, startup
*sigh* the bubble is back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com
The pickup spot works for me!
Unfortunately, I don’t have them too long with this business model. Plenty of people downtown would pay a few bucks to avoid a trip up 29. They should take advantage of that.
@1: How do they make any money?
sounds great. i can’t wait
yeah it does sound kind of neat. but i’d still like to know
As someone who suffers from product judgement anxiety, I could not do this. I hunch over the self-checkout with my cat food and white wine and hope no one sees me and thinks, “Haha look at the lonely cat lady”.
I’m guessing they work out deals with each of the stores for a percentage of the sales. Even at 10%, though, I can’t imagine this is going to ever be profitable.
from the daily progress last month:
We can order anything? Ok, me and Flooze need two fairy costumes and a bottle of bubbly STAT.
and a box truck? really? wouldn’t a mini-van with the seats taken out be a lot “greener” and just as effective? I can’t imagine many people would be asking them to go pick out a bedroom suite for them. Interesting concept, though.
@ 5- at least its not butt cream and hot pockets. thats a lot sadder. (cue jim gaffigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zewDAa99Ns8)
i can hear the faildozer idling behind the building…
When I worked in SF at a dot-com in the mid-late 90s, I used WebVan like a fiend (was like PeaPod, and at the time, everyone thought that PeaPod would fail and Webvan would take off). Loved it. I could order everything while I was at work, and have it delivered that day, often. It was great because I could choose some of my favorite things from specialty stores, but still get good prices on the basic stuff from Trader Joe’s. And they didn’t charge a delivery fee if you spent over $50, and they refused tips. Having no car, this was so helpful.
Also helpful in keeping the grocery bill down, because you could see a running total as you added stuff, and kept me from impulse buying, too. I would often trim down my cart once I was about to check out.
if these people would pick up stuff at trader joe’s, they would be successful.
if we had a trader joes, my bank account would be successful. that shit is affordable and awesome!
Okay “Start Up” people, I’m about to give you the advice that will make your business if you are so wise as to listen… so that means someday if you ever meet me you owe me a nice bottle of wine. My choice. And I have very good taste.
Many local restaurants buy a ton of stuff from Sam’s Club because many items are cheaper than their vendors can provide (ex: bottled water is cheaper from Sam’s than Sysco, Coca-Cola, etc.). The problem is, it’s a pain the ass to drive to Sam’s every week, so much so that some restaurants prefer to knowingly pay more for the items and get them delivered (from Sysco, etc.) than make the drive.
You could be the one pocketing the margin between Sam’s Club and the food wholesalers, plus restaurants order in large quantities and often (unlike retail-style personal accounts). That being said, a lot more is on the line if your delivery is late for a restaurant than a home drop off, so have your shit together before you approach anyone and know that if you dare deliver during lunch or dinner hours your phone calls will go unreturned from that day forward.
It’s all about the big fish - the little ones can afford help who goes shopping for them and cleans the house/folds the laundry.
@14: That is true. Fleurie goes to Sam’s.
I would never use this service. The pain of going online and trying to find Norwegian bottled water and all the other special goodies is just not worth it if I have to drive somewhere to pick it up. I’d rather drive an additional 5 minutes and not have the hassle of browsing an internet site trying to find the exact stuff I need. they certainly have a bunch of cash though for all the marketing they are doing
@16 While the online shopping isn’t as much of a pain as you might think, if designed properly, I agree that I wouldn’t do it if I had to go pick it up somewhere. One reason I cherished Webvan is that they delivered to your house, and gave half-hour time slots at all times of day, so you could choose the best delivery time. The Harris Teeter out by Target has something similar, I think? Where you can shop online and then go pick up your groceries already bagged for you, but you still have to go to the HT.
p.s. Webvan used to deliver wine & beer, too. Not that it was a problem for me at the time, but all they would do is just check your ID on delivery. Kozmo did too, if I remember correctly, although those guys were on bikes, so you couldn’t really do a bulk order. A good friend of mine jumped ship from our dot-com to go work as CTO of Kozmo a little while before it tanked (not the one mentioned in the Wiki). Oh well.
combine this service with the local “escort” service and we might be on to something.
(better yet, combine wahooptie and the escorts)
@18
i wondered if this site would get around to the local escort service.
do you mean the one on the front-page of the progress recently where you can hire a gaggle of girls to come to your party and hang out in their skimpies being extravagantly flirtatious etc?
http://www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/article/model_marketing_business_hopes_flirtresses_steal_the_show_at_parties/24994/
“We’re not just pretty,” said Allison Hurt, Flirt’s owner. “We’re fun too.” There are around a dozen Flirtresses, all of whom are UVa students, friends of Hurt’s or employees of the shop. “We’re fun. We’re not floozies out there getting paid for our sex appeal. But we are Flirtresses, so we’re going to flirt.”
@18 that’s already included in the concierge service of the American Express Black card
@19: No, I believe he was referring to this escort service.
@19 now you basically call one of Shen’s friends a hooker?
nah, OD, I’ve flirted with many a flirtress (uhm, all of them, I think), I was speaking more along the lines of the link echo echo’d.
/babysat a flirtresses dog last night. Yeah, I’m *that* cool….
/babysat a flirtresses dog last night. Yeah, I’m *that*
cooltool….FTFY
@22
is Allison one of Shen’s pals?
she’s done a lot for this town—i think she was one of the founders of Derriere de Soie…
(Shen, if her pal, would’ve corrected the french in its name)
@25: Not really. She’s friends with my old roomie who is a paid flirter. I doubt I could be friends with someone so snotty. Don’t make me mention the X Lounge incident.
What X Lounge incident?
/grabs the popcorn
Spill it Shen
Ok, let me just say that I had no prob with the girl till I witnessed the last part of this story myself. So, word is at work that back in the winter, this girl left her coat laying around and somebody took it home. She proceeded to ream out the manager, demanding him to have all employees stop cleaning up and go look for her BURBERRY coat. When he refused, she she demanded to be able to go search his office, insisting he must have it. And she threatened to call the cops. She hung around bitching until he had to threaten to call the cops on her and left. The coat turned up, someone had taken accidentally and he made her come pick it up herself instead of sending a friend to get it for her. So, like two weeks ago she comes in, gets a drink, and goes up to the manager asking if it’s ok for her to be there. He’s like, yeah, you have a drink, whatever. And they say they should let it drop. But she doesn’t let it drop. She accuses him of being “really mean” and lets him know she knows VIRGINIA BUSH? BUSCH? before walking away. Not sure who that is but she obviously thought she could threaten him by saying she knew someone rich. Pretty prissy but we all had a good laugh at her stuck-up antics when she left.
Virginia Busch?
Who cares?
Oh yeah, that must be the one. If you don’t bow down to her bratty friend, she’ll come throw that parrot at you.
29: that is like this and oh boy, I wish I didn’t know that.
She has very broad shoulders, a butterfly stroker (swim) perhaps? Was very likeable, but not having seen her in years i’ve heard she got a bit crankier/odd-er. There was a story about how she tossed some girl around like a professional wrestler at BANG! once.
WAS it a burberry?
i wonder if the flirtresses would deliver groceries for this new company? Perhpas let you pluck the saumone fumee you ordered out of their ample cleavages?
@30 Nice Busch!
Ew. Why would you wanna eat smoked salmon from some chick’s cleavage. We are not going to work out.
I guess this food service would be practical for some, but I like grocery shopping. It’s like being in a candy store.
@35
not ME, silly.
i was merely suggesting a clever business-model, a merger of sorts for two startup companies, so that THOR could buy them BOTH cheap and welcome them under the CareBear umbrella.
I have used retail relay and its fantastic. You want some stuff, click buy pickup. They are going to add stuff all over central virginia. This is a great new local business and worthy of a good look by people. Trust me you will love using it…
William, are you affiliated with the business?
@36 - We’ve already done that .. it’s been named Bare Flirtress Relay
@38
not to question THOR, but from my own limited experience with this our website it seems that the flirtresses get packages routinely delivered to THEM, and not vice-versa.
My wife & I are part of the Retail Relay limited beta. Right now they are having friends and family try the service out so that they can figure out what works and what doesn’t before they put it out there for everyone to try. We’ve tried it and like it a lot - but obviously we’re a little prejudiced.
Right now they have items Reid’s Supermarket, the C’ville Market, and Rebecca’s Natural Food. I think they have about 20 more local stores signed up and are busy getting everybody’s stuff added to the site.
They have their own forum too:
http://talk.retailrelay.com
So, if you’re curious, want to make suggestions, you could go there.
It was interesting to see our business being discussed on cvillain.com — I’m glad to see it’s generating interest.
I’m the founder of the startup, so I can address some of the questions and concerns somewhat officially: We make our money by charging our partner retailers a sales commission. This has been a fairly easy sell to retailers, as there’s an opportunity for stores to radically increase sales — a store like Rebecca’s Natural Food can effectively be all over Charlotesville (Downtown, Forest Lakes, 250 West, UVA, etc), without investing in expensive new stores. And it’s cheaper for retailers to move products out of the “back door” (if you will) than the front door.
About the mortality rate of businesses in this area — what we’re attempting to do is definitely challenging. To some extent, that’s what makes this business interesting. But, it’s worth pointing out that there are a few inspiring success stories (like FreshDirect in Manhattan, Plumgood in Nashville, and Peapod). And several of the folks that have launched businesses in this area, both successful and unsuccessful, are participating in Retail Relay. So, we’d like to think we’ve learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work with this type of business.
About delivery to the pickup locations instead of to the door — I recently responded to a similar question on our forums, so if you’re interested in our take, visit http://talk.retailrelay.com/p/28/64.aspx
And — in line with our ad that’s scanned on the front page — I would like to throw in a short plug for our business. We are looking for talented people to join our startup team. If you’re interested, visit: http://retailrelay.com/careers
@17 for items from one store, I agree; if I’m going to have to get in the car anyway, I’ll just go do the shopping myself. If, however, I can order from more than one store (say some things from Sam’s, the things I want from Whole Foods, the things I want from Kroger or Harris Teeter, the things from IY and perhaps a couple of things from Feast) and be able to go a mile from my house to the downtown location and pick all of it up at once for no more than I’d spend at each location and while using less gas and not having to park 4 extra times; sign me up.
@38 not affiliated with the business other than having bought some stuff from them and met Zach and Isiah who own it. Its great and is going to be expanding. I have kids and it seems like we always end up needing crap that I can only get at forest lakes which is an area these guys said they will be handling soon. The thought of not having to head out 29 is better than just about anything I can think of thats legal…