FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 28, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 37
The Race to Deliver
worth it to New York City consumers?
Th e total was $27.23, but with the 50%
code, I ended up paying $19.61, including
a 20% tip or $5.49 for the courier. Th e
app gives customers the option of tipping
between 10, 15, 20, or 25%. Th e courier
receives 80% and the packer 20%. Once
the customer confi rms the purchase, a
page pops up, keeping them up-to-date
with the delivery status of their order.
Delivery was swift . Only 9 minutes
aft er placing the order, the courier
arrived, handed over the goods, and
went on his way.
A four-pack of Scott toilet paper at the
“corner store” runs for $6.99, a dozen
eggs, cage-free are $4.99, Almond Breeze
is $5.99, a loaf of Arnold White Bread is
$4.69.
Shoppers who want to get a head start
and place an order during off -hours hoping
to receive their groceries fi rst thing in
the morning are out of luck. Like regular
stores, the app is “closed” from 11 pm to
8 am, and orders can’t be placed during
those times.
Not everything was easy
Orders placed with JOKR and Gorillas
were less successful. Despite both companies
advertising delivery in Long Island
City, neither had a warehouse close
enough to deliver on the border between
LIC and Astoria.
Still, fi lling a cart on the apps was similar
in price to fi lling one in-person,
though the same brand discrepancies
exist — if you’re hoping to fi nd a housebrand
jug of milk or can of vegetables on
an app, you’re likely out of luck.
A small order with Gorillas — which
was just a hypothetical, since we couldn’t
complete the transaction – amounted to
$18.84 for the groceries themselves, plus
$1.80 delivery fee, $0.28 in sales tax, and
a $6 tip — $27.33 in total.
Th e products themselves were priced
similarly to what we found in a nearby
Food Universe — a grocery store owned
by Key Food — and in some cases less
expensive.
A can of Del Monte Green Beans on
Gorillas was 50 percent off , $1.00, a
four-pack of Scott toilet paper, $4.99, a
2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, $2.69, a pint
of Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream, $5.29, and a
dozen Eggland Large White Eggs, $2.99.
What I couldn’t get on Gorillas was a
gallon of dairy milk — most of their
milks are lactose or dairy-free. I chose
12 ounces of Ronnybrook Farm milk for
$1.89, but the real next-best
choice was a half gallon of
Battenkill Valley skim milk,
which runs $4.49.
At Food Universe, the
same dozen eggs costs
$3.99, though the store was
running a “manager special,”
on a diff erent brand
of eggs — 3 cartons of a
dozen for $5. A gallon of
2 percent milk was $3.59,
Green Giant Green Beans
$1.99, the same pint of Ben
& Jerry’s, $5.59, two liters
of Coke, $2.49, and a four-pack of Scott
toilet paper, $5.29.
At a nearby independent halal grocery
store, a gallon of milk was $3.49, as
advertised by a sign taped to the front
door, 2 liters of any soda, $2.49, and single
rolls of Scott toilet paper, $1.49.
We had some more trouble with brands
on JOKR. We fi lled the cart with a bottle
of Palmolive dish soap, $2.99 — slightly
more expensive than the Food Universe’s
most expensive bottle, which was $2.79,
but on par with a bottle of Ajax at the
halal store – a four-pack of Scott, $3.79,
and 2 liters of Coke, $2.29. Th e cheapest
eggs, a dozen Alderfer “humane certifi
ed” large eggs, was $3.49, the cheapest
loaf of bread, “Mestemacher Fitness
Bread,” $3.99, compared to a $2.29 loaf
of store-brand Italian bread at Food
Universe.
We couldn’t fi nd canned green beans,
but the closest item – a 12oz bag of fresh
beans — was $3.99, and a half-gallon of
Organic Valley 2 percent milk was $4.79.
All together, the haul was $25.51, plus
$0.81 in taxes and a $6.00 tip — $32.32
in total. At the time, the app noted that
delivery would likely take longer because
of the heavy rain.
Of course, your experiences with these
apps may vary.
‘It’s an atrocity’
Some aren’t sold on the
idea of grocery delivery
apps, no matter how convenient
or cost-eff ective
the companies promise
they are.
Friends Jasmine Lee
and Kahlil Robert Irving
prefer to support local
businesses and know the
owners.
Lee, who lives and works
in Chinatown, thinks “it’s
an atrocity.” She prefers to pick her produce
and disagrees that using a grocery
delivery app is faster.
“It’s actually not very convenient,” Lee
said. “What’s more convenient than just
running down the street to your bodega?”
Kahlil Robert Irving, who lived in
Brooklyn and now calls St. Louis,
Missouri home, felt that the constant
evolution of trying to fi gure out how to
make money by off ering more convenience
was quite problematic for human
interaction.
“It’s about being human. Th is kind of
evolution of capitalism is dehumanizing,”
Irving expressed. “It’s demonizing
the possibility of relationships or sustaining
interpersonal relationships.”
David Bishop, a partner with Brick
Meets Click, a consulting company
that works with “conventional” grocery
stores, said those established brick-andmortars
know best.
“Th e retailer’s inventory ordering system
is fairly automated in the sense that
it’s looking at historical buying patterns,
overlaying that with other causal factors
like weather, and incorporating what the
current sales trends are to replenish that
stock,” Bishop said. “A traditional grocery
store has been around a long time,
so their understanding of what sells and
what doesn’t is far greater than what a
new entrant who’s coming in and trying
to serve a specifi c need may be able
to do.”
Quick-delivery apps, for now, are
focused in dense urban areas. Since each
small warehouse serves a small area —
maxing out at 2.5 miles, in the case of
1520 — there need to be a lot of people
living there.
Th e cost of purchasing enough land
or renting out a large enough building
to run a traditional grocery store is
much higher in New York City and the
tri-state area than in rural areas, Bishop
said, so operating out of a store with
a smaller footprint, and that doesn’t
invite shoppers in, means those companies
have “comparable costs, although
lower to traditional brick-and-mortar
grocers.”
All stores try to reduce waste, he said,
because, in the end, it eats into their
profi ts — but he said the proof that carrying
fewer items would result in less
waste “remains to be seen.”
Th e third installment of “Th e Race to
Deliver,” scheduled to run on Nov. 4,
will focus on the potential and current
impacts grocery delivery apps may have
on bodegas, grocery stores and other
brick-and-mortar businesses.
The warehouse window display of the Gorillas grocery delivery service in Chinatown, which
promises to deliver within 10 minutes. A Buyk courier delivers groceries in the Village.
THE RACE
TO
DELIVER
/WWW.QNS.COM
