亚马逊旧将挑战前老板

    诞生于互联网泡沫时期的初创公司当中，最丢脸的或许莫过于Webvan。这家在线食品杂货零售商在短短三年之内就挥霍了8亿美元，最后却在2001年破产倒闭。对于像阿普瓦•梅塔这样的创业者而言，Webvan仍然具有警示作用。梅塔现年26岁，在多伦多长大。他创立已经七个月的Instacart公司现在正设法在Webvan当年搞臭了的的美国食品杂货在线零售市场上获得成功，而这个市场目前的年销售规模已经高达5,680亿美元。这样一来，他就必须与亚马逊（Amazon， 更不用提一大批其他竞争对手）展开针尖对麦芒的交锋。他曾经在亚马逊担任软件设计工程师，负责开发旨复杂的运算程序，找出送货上门的最有效路线。

    梅塔回忆说:“（亚马逊）他们把大家订购的食品杂货和Xbox游戏机一起送货上门。”他当时曾与亚马逊生鲜食品业务（AmazonFresh）的员工合作。之所以将食品杂货和诸如电子产品等传统上利润率较高的商品一起送货上门，是为了帮助缓解食品杂货利润率低，以及通常与采购、储存和运输农产品相关的费用昂贵这些问题。“这可能看起来像是一个有意思的想法，但一个人会买几次Xbox呢？”

    梅塔的初创公司Instacart目前已经获得了来自创业孵化器Y Combinator、科斯拉风投公司（Khosla Ventures）及其他投资者提供的总计250万美元的风投资金。它的在线食品杂货零售服务平台采用的经营方式与AmazonFresh不同。本月早些时候，AmazonFresh已从西雅图扩展到洛杉矶，今年晚些时候可能会进一步扩展到旧金山湾区。据报道，AmazonFresh的扩展将依赖于在城区附近建造新仓库的方式。 Instacart则利用整个旧金山湾区（Instacart目前在仅这个地区运营）已有的基础设施，其中包括诸多知名超市，以及约200名已签合同的个人购物配送员。

    Instacart的运作方式如下：客户在网上或者通过移动应用程序购物，从上至诸如西夫韦（Safeway）、全食（Whole Foods）、Trader Joe's及好市多（Costco）等连锁零售商，下至规模较小的独立超市的存货目录中选购商品。每个订单可能有来自几家商店的商品。商品数量不超过15件的订单可以选择一小时送货上门。否则，可以选择两小时、同天，或在稍后的日期和时间送货上门。Instacar根据购物数额收取一小笔费用。

    一旦客户下了订单之后，一款智能手机应用程序就会通知个人购物配送员。程序会告诉他们去哪家商店，所购商品位于哪个货架通道中的哪个货架上。为了最大限度地提高效率，每个购物配送员同时按几份订单采购商品，相当于一次购买六七十件商品。（如果一位客户从三家商品订购商品的话，那么Instacart会派出三名个人购物配送员分别前往这三家商店，让他们在购物后会合，把各自购买的商品合在一起送货上门。）同样这款应用程序还可以帮助购物配送员送货上门，在对交通状况、天气、体育比赛和城市建设等诸多因素加以综合考虑之后推荐配送路线。结果是：客户可以在短短一小时之内便收到他们订购的商品。

    Y Combinator联合创始人格雷厄姆资助过的所有初创公司当中，Instacart仍然是他和妻子杰西卡最经常使用的服务平台之一。 他说：“Instacart是那些卓越到惊人地步的罕见产品之一。没试过之前，你不知道这个服务平台会有多好。”或许吧。但Instacar在达到在线食品杂货零售商FreshDirect的规模之前，还有很长的路要走。目前成立已11年的FreshDirect的服务范围包括纽约曼哈顿、费城和新泽西。但是初创公司Instacart的低成本模式可能更加有助于迅速扩张。Instacart目前只在旧金山湾区提供服务，梅塔希望到明年底扩大到美国10个主要的大都市。

    他最终可能必须面对的一个问题，Instacart与客户选购商品的商店之间没有多少正式的关系。（梅塔表示，他的公司正在计划与几家商店建立合作关系。）Instacart能够让用户浏览竞争对手的存货目录，混合搭配不同商店的产品，这种做法很可能会让部分连锁零售商感到不满。而本月早些时候最新推出的“Instacart Plus”本地价格最低化功能促使比价得到了进一步的推进。它旨在跟踪这家公司数据库中的每家商店，为客户提供瓶装花生酱这类可供商品的最便宜价格。梅塔说：“我们最终可能会对西夫韦等商店的销售造成冲击，但最终，这对于客户而言无疑是最好的决定。”即使是他的老东家——亚马逊的首席执行官杰夫•贝佐斯可能也会认同这个零售理念。（财富中文网）

    译者：iDo98

    There are few dot-com era startups more ignominious than Webvan, the online grocery business that spent over $800 million in three years before collapsing in 2001. It remains a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs like 26-year-old Toronto-raised Apoorva Mehta, whose seven-month-old business Instacart is trying to succeed in a $568 billion domestic market in which Webvan notoriously failed. In doing so, he finds himself going toe-to-toe with Amazon (AMZN) -- not to mention a swath of other competitors -- where he once worked as a software design engineer, creating complex strings of math to find the most efficient routes for shipping packages to customers.

    "They were delivering your groceries along with Xboxes," recalls Mehta, who collaborated with AmazonFresh employees. Delivering groceries alongside traditionally higher-margin items like electronics was done to help temper the low margins and pricey overhead typically associated with procuring, storing, and shipping produce. "That may seem like an interesting idea, but how many times do you need to buy an Xbox?"

    With $2.5 million from startup incubator Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, and others, Mehta's startup approaches online groceries differently from AmazonFresh, which expanded beyond Seattle to Los Angeles earlier this month and could reach the San Francisco Bay Area later this year. AmazonFresh's expansion will reportedly rely on the construction of new warehouses near cities. Instacart uses an already existing infrastructure, one that includes well-known supermarkets and the hustle of some 200 contracted personal shoppers across the San Francisco Bay Area, where Instacart is available.

    Here's how it works: Customers shop online or via mobile app, choosing from the inventories of chains like Safeway (SWY), Whole Foods (WFM), Trader Joe's, and Costco (COST), down to small, independent markets. Each order may have items from several stores. Orders with 15 items or less are eligible for one-hour delivery. Otherwise, two-hour, same-day, or a delivery at a later date and time are also options. Instacart charges a small premium based on the purchase size.

    Once a customer places an order, a smartphone app notifies a personal shopper. It lets them know which store to go to, and which aisle and shelf the item is located in. To maximize efficiency, each shopper works on filling several orders at once, the equivalent of 60 or 70 items. (If a customer orders from three different stores, three personal shoppers are assigned and rendezvous afterwards to merge their purchases into one delivery.) The same app also helps shoppers deliver, suggesting routes that factor in traffic, weather, sports games, and city construction. The result: Customers get their purchases in as little as an hour.

    Of all the businesses he's helped fund, Instacart remains one of the most used by Y Combinator co-founder Graham and his wife Jessica. "Instacart is one of those rare products that's surprisingly great," he says. "You don't realize how good such a thing could be till you try it." Perhaps. But Instacart has a long way to go before it achieves the reach of FreshDirect, the 11-year-old online service serving Manhattan, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. But the startup's low-cost model may lend itself better to rapid expansion. Available in the Bay Area now, Mehta wants to be in 10 major metropolitan areas by the end of next year.

    One issue he may have to eventually deal with is the stores, with which Instacart has few official ties. (Mehta suggests several partnerships are in the works.) Instacart's ability to let users browse competitors' inventories to mix-and-match items likely won't make some chains happy. And the new "Instacart Plus" feature launched earlier this month pushes comparison shopping even further, tracking every store in its database and serving up the cheapest price for available items like that jar of peanut butter. "We may end up cannibalizing sales from stores like Safeway, but in the end, this is the best decision for the customers," says Mehta. That's a retail philosophy even his former CEO, Jeff Bezos, might agree with.