Uncrowd boss slams rapid grocery delivery mad parade
Is there a more divisive part of the retail sector right now than rapid grocery delivery?
Whilst many VCs see a fantastic opportunity, others argue that the space is an accident waiting to happen.
Yesterday, we reported on the thoughts of Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon exec and supply chain consultant. Sample quote: “One of the worst business models ever created was rapid grocery delivery in its current format.”
And now Richard Hammond, CEO at retail analytics startup, Uncrowd, has weighed into the debate. Spoiler alert, he’s not a fan either.
In a LinkedIn post, he says: “I’ve said all along that by 2022 we will be left with at most two big fast delivery grocery services and that those will be obliterated by the grocers themselves.”
“And yet Gorillas has raised $1.3 billion in venture capital. Every time I assume that we live in rational times, something like this happens. My old nan would have read the Gorillas pitch deck and passed on it, and she loved a stupid get rich quick scheme.”
Hammond goes on to slam a “complete lack of real product market fit” and spurious mid-pandemic research claiming people were desperate for deliveries within ten minutes of placing orders.
Companies in this area have also, he argues, developed infrastructure that thus far has generated more worker complaints than profits, “secure in the knowledge that the pace of doing this in and of itself would drive a FOMO feeding frenzy among innocent and trusting glassy eyed VCs”.
He adds: “And then the consolidation happened, and like Homer famously chasing his runaway BBQ ready pig carcass, they shout 'it's still good, it's still good' because they know this was all expected.”
Enter the grocers, having learnt from their commercial partnerships with the likes of Gorillas (Tesco) and Deliveroo (Co-op), “with their own more sensible versions that meet whatever real need is there but in a much less Web 3.0 Metaverse Bitcoin NFT horseshit manner.”
Hammond concludes: “I imagine the boardroom conversation at Tesco went something along the lines of 'What's that? We let Gorillas service the ludicrously expensive to operate ten minute deliveries for us and we clean up with the rational within an hour option? Nice!'
“Gosh it's so hard being a grown up sometimes.”
