{"id":12672,"date":"2020-04-13T09:52:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T13:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?p=12672"},"modified":"2020-04-13T09:53:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T13:53:37","slug":"bryant-park-whole-foods-closes-to-become-prime-fulfillment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/bryant-park-whole-foods-closes-to-become-prime-fulfillment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryant Park Whole Foods Closes To Become Prime Fulfillment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Most unfortunate and interesting. The closest Whole Foods to RentHop HQ will be closing to public shoppers. Instead, it will “focus more on prime orders” during the Covid-19 shutdowns. The Bryant Park Whole Foods is now sending out inventory for Amazon Prime instead of working as a grocery store.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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I’m sure Amazon has smart people who have crunched the numbers, but it seems almost unthinkable only months ago. One of the most central and prime real estate locations in Manhattan will turn away all foot traffic, instead becoming a logistics warehouse for their delivery services?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Why It Makes Sense<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Anyone who has been to Whole Foods in the past four weeks knows it is a lot busier than in normal times. However, the slight surge is minuscule compared to record-breaking surges in delivery demand. FreshDirect has had no delivery slots most days for weeks, and that’s with many paying customers on Delivery Pass (obviously some get slots, but I’ve refreshed daily and now my subscription has expired, which I will not renew<\/a>).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So what did the Operations Research geniuses at Amazon conclude? They can serve many more customers by increasing online delivery capacity. They are already near 100% capacity, and must have taken a careful look at the system bottlenecks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Identifying Growth Bottlenecks<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Part of the bottleneck is supply of goods – but even if they are out of Classico Basil and Tomato sauce, there is always someone willing to order Raos. Tech technology is also clearly not the bottleneck – they are already one of the world’s leading cloud providers, and despite the occasional bugs, their site can withstand a lot. It is possible they lack available staff to delivery the goods – but with 16 million newly unemployed, they should getting an influx of new applicants to join the ranks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Removing Variation<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Most likely, the bottleneck is preparing the orders and distributing them to the delivery staff. By converting centrally located stores into exclusive fulfillment hubs<\/a>, they no longer need to dedicate much of the staff to the cash register or food bars. They won’t have employees asking, “how many pounds of ground beef?” “do you want 85% lean or 90% lean?”). Most importantly, it’s about reducing variation. When they need to be ready for customers who might want or need anything, it doesn’t take much to slow down the capacity of the entire system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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