On the subject of a new Walmart+ offering which provides pickup services for products that customers want to return, one MNB reader wrote:
Not very green! Do not see how it is economical.
Maybe not.
I have no idea how closely the metrics have been examined, but if there are trucks out there making deliveries for Walmart+, is it significantly worse for the environment if they also have to stop to pick up returns? After all, those customers would have to get in the car to bring the items back to the store, anyway…
Regarding Amazon's second Prime Day promotion this year, scheduled to take place next month, one MNB reader wrote:
Amazon is probably hoping that the timing of this 2nd Prime Day will align well with all of the new members that signed up so that they could watch Thursday Night Football. Especially if they anticipate a large number of people to cancel their membership as their free 30 day trial ends. Sounds smart to me.
Excellent point.
And, on another subject, MNB readerSteven Ritchey wrote:
If I were Instacart / Rosie and wanted to make inroads into the independent supermarket industry, I'd go to the companies that supply them, and offer my services through them. It would be more stable than seeking out all the myriad independents there are. Independent grocers frequently go under, they go bankrupt, they get sold, in other words, a lot of them don't make it.
I'll be honest here, I don't really know how their business model works, if perchance the retailer has to make pay a fee to start using their service. If that is the case, let's say, Read Supermarket in Reisel, TX may not want or be able to pay what it would cost to sign up a single store. But, if their supplier, which used to be Grocers Supply in Houston, TX were to sign up, with the economies of scale they can bring to bear, maybe it would be less expensive for a small operator for Reads to use them.
I don't know exactly how it would work, but I do believe I would go after the suppliers that these independents buy their products from.
