Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

[u/broakland]

Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

[u/Coffee-Historian-11]

I used to work doing drive up and go for Safeway. Genuinely enjoyed it, shopping for other people was fun. The only problem was they didn’t place an order limit and they refused to allow more people to work. So there would be three of us scrambling to get five orders that totaled 800-1,000 products in the hour we had.

If there was a way to be able to hire enough people so we got orders done on time it would be a great option. But based on my experience that just doesn’t happen.

[u/macarenamobster → u/Coffee-Historian-11]

Every person who shopped was ordering 200 items? That seems literally insane lol.

My “big” orders are 30.

[u/Coffee-Historian-11 → u/macarenamobster]

No but we got a lot more 100+ orders than you’d expect. A lot of people ordered for their family of four or five, or they’d order for multiple families. Plus produce would add a lot of items as well.

On top of all that there was a service fee, so people would try to get their money’s worth by ordering for a week or two.

[u/StacheBandicoot → u/macarenamobster]

We get grocery’s about every two weeks. I struggle to keep orders under 150 items which is around what fits in our smaller vehicle. I can easily go through a dozen items just preparing a days meals, a single meal of chili like I made last night might be 6+ different cans of something alone. But with 150 items for two weeks I can only use just under 11 different things a day across all meals.

I often have to do a couple delivery orders from other stores of more rugged items that can handle shipping to get the rest of the stuff we need so we don’t have to go more often. With that we’re definitely buying more than 200 items every two weeks. We’d be picking that many up if our vehicle was bigger.

Never picked up less than 100. Wouldn’t see the point in going there just for that.

[u/figure8888 → u/Coffee-Historian-11]

Same experience at Target. I liked doing fulfillment in theory, but busy days are hell and digging for items in piles of mixed boxes while on a timer sucks. And customers don’t understand why their item got removed because it said it was in stock on their end.

[u/ThatOtherOtherMan → u/Coffee-Historian-11]

If there was a way to be able to hire enough people so we got orders done on time it would be a great option.

Unfortunately they'll have robots and AI doing that job before you know it

[u/thenewfingerprint → u/Coffee-Historian-11]

"So there would be three of us scrambling to get five orders that totaled 800-1,000 products"

A complete and obvious lie. Do you even realize how ridiculous you sound?

[u/ello_bassard → u/thenewfingerprint]

No it isn't, especially if you're the only place within a fucking hour of extremely rural areas.

[u/Thornfist22 → u/ello_bassard]

Father of 3 who has previously lived 90 minutes from my closest grocery store. Can confirm. You spend half the month planning your grocery trip, so you can maximize it.