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Tags:square feet,sunny dhillon,cfc model,online grocery,cfc,dusty grocery aisle,online grocery delivery,faster delivery time,numerous geographic location,central fulfillment center,Advertising Tech,Column,eCommerce,Extra Crunch,Food,Logistics,Market Analysis,Robotics,Startups,albertsons,Amazon,Automation,e-grocery,Grocery store,Instacart,kroger,merchandising,Michael Moritz,natural language processing,Ocado,online grocery,safeway,Signia Venture Partners,Walmart,whole foods
Posted: 2020-07-20 20:22:18
From farm to phone: A paradigm shift in grocery

Central Fulfillment Centers for grocery delivery are far more efficient than shoppers picking from retail aisles
From Walter Thompson at eCommerce – TechCrunch
Originally published 2020-07-20
The most widely known approach comes from Instacart, which relies on hundreds of thousands of human shoppers fulfilling customers’ online grocery orders by shopping side-by-side with regular brick-and-mortar customers. The model clearly works for Instacart, which is valued at nearly $14 billion after its latest raise. However, this model is far from ideal. Even pre-COVID, shoppers were known to crowd out regular customers, not to mention introduce high delivery costs and the element of human error to the fulfillment process. One obvious solution has become the central fulfillment center, or CFC. CFCs are large, standalone warehouses — often serving distinct geographies — that can supply both brick-and-mortar stores and online grocery deliveries. As order volumes rise and consumers demand faster and faster delivery times, innovation has already been infused into the CFC model.
The most widely known approach comes from Instacart, which relies on hundreds of thousands of human shoppers fulfilling customers’ online grocery orders by shopping side-by-side with regular brick-and-mortar customers. The model clearly works for Instacart, which is valued at nearly $14 billion after its latest raise. However, this model is far from ideal. Even pre-COVID, shoppers were known to crowd out regular customers, not to mention introduce high delivery costs and the element of human error to the fulfillment process. One obvious solution has become the central fulfillment center, or CFC. CFCs are large, standalone warehouses — often serving distinct geographies — that can supply both brick-and-mortar stores and online grocery deliveries. As order volumes rise and consumers demand faster and faster delivery times, innovation has already been infused into the CFC model.
Tags:square feet,sunny dhillon,cfc model,online grocery,cfc,dusty grocery aisle,online grocery delivery,faster delivery time,numerous geographic location,central fulfillment center,Advertising Tech,Column,eCommerce,Extra Crunch,Food,Logistics,Market Analysis,Robotics,Startups,albertsons,Amazon,Automation,e-grocery,Grocery store,Instacart,kroger,merchandising,Michael Moritz,natural language processing,Ocado,online grocery,safeway,Signia Venture Partners,Walmart,whole foods
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