The dot-com that's caught my eye is FreshDirect. Their basic premise isn't very new, indeed, it seems virtually indistinguishable from a HomeRuns or Peapod at first, since they just deliver groceries to your door when you order them from their website. And they've even got the very 1999 model of giving you $50 worth of free groceries on your first order. But the similarities end when you consider that they're actually in danger of being somewhat successful.
Now, the reason you may not have heard of FreshDirect is because of their market: New York City. They only deliver to parts of Manhattan and Queens, and they don't ever intend to grow outside of NYC's boundaries, as far as I've seen. This makes a ton of sense, because we've got a densely-packed, fairly affluent population with almost no access to real grocery stores.
I'll pause to explain, for those of you who aren't familiar with New York City and its culture, that we don't really have supermarkets or grocery stores as they exist in the suburbs or in smaller cities. Most people get their groceries through a combination of specialty stores, small markets, corner convenience stores, and farmers' markets that are set up around the city. Hippies also exercise the co-op option. But big, acres-of-parking, miles-of-aisles supermarkets with their own in-house post office and bank branch simply don't fit into our city.
There are upscale boutique supermarkets in nearly every neighborhood in Manhattan, since there's a disproportionate number of foodies in this town. And then there's the Fairway Uptown in Harlem, which was created by the same guy who went on to found FreshDirect. The Fairway Uptown is known for extremely fresh food and relatively cheap prices. FreshDirect has both of those, plus the convenience of delivery scheduled in two hour windows. In a town where nobody owns a car, delivery of groceries is a big deal.
They've understood the culture of the city pretty well, offering delivery times that start at 6pm and don't end until midnight, which does a good job of reflecting the actual times when Manhattanites might be at home. And the quality of the food is extraordinary, besting even the produce at the frou-frou foodie stores, and coming in cheaper than the local ghetto mart's square, hard tomatoes. In all, they've got a hit.
One of my few disappointments with the cancellation of this year's Webby Awards ceremonies is that I was hoping to meet the Fresh Direct folks if they'd have gone. But they're probably not too worried about winning awards, as the bigger accomplishment is that their business model is actually working. On my block alone, I've seen their delivery guys stopping at every single building with the boxes emblazoned with the green FreshDirect logo on them, and then of course we seem the boxes again the next day when all those people put them out for recycling. I was looking around while walking the dog, and it occurs to me that New York hasn't had this much crushed cardboard lying around since the last time they filmed a David Blaine TV special.
So, it's great news. Exciting to see companies that perform a useful service, make a decent profit, accomplish these goals elegantly, and best of all, use the web effectively and indispensably to run their business. That's what I'd always figured the web would be.
]]>Conversely, other businesses waste tons of money trying to make it NYC when their business plans just don't work there.
Entrepreneurs need to understand that NYC is nothing like the rest of the country.
]]>Fresh Direct FAQ says that they will deliver your order as soon as the following day. This allows them to plot routes for their trucks and maximize their trucks and people's time.
]]>Looks like the racist practices of Kozmo and urbanfetch all over again ...
]]>Hold on there just a second, Donald! I live on the UWS near Zabar's and they only just started delivering to my neighborhood this past month -- after promising they'd be here late last year. Slow to expand? Certainly. Racist? Uh, no.
]]>Regarding assertions of racism, FreshDirect's delivery warehouse is in Long Island City. Delivery areas seem to expand almost in perfect circles outward from that point, so I'd not really malign them as biased, especially given the people they employ in that struggling neighborhoood.
Despite Kozmo's forays into foolishly low-margin products in Manhattan, I have it on good authority that their effort for the entirety of New York City was profitable, and that it was only the efforts in other, lesser, cities with their lower densities that humbled that bastion of convenience.
The porn delivery service here in Manhattan is City Vice, which seems to be doing well. Delivery of porn videos was a substantial source of income for erstwhile Kozmo competitor UrbanFetch.
And first responses last, Paul, it's good to find something else we entirely agree upon. I don't doubt that Kozmo will someday return to our fair city. I'll be the first to place an order.
]]>Poor people, on foot, delivering luxury that they can't afford themselves to lazy, more financially successful people. That's why I was glad to see them both go belly up.
In the case of FreshDirect, I'll be patient. I love the consistent quality of Fairway and could really use a service that delivers similar quality to my doorstep. Until then, Fairway delivers.
And Morningside Heights is Harlem. Like Central Park is Seneca Village.
]]>I'm sure all the poor people who lost their jobs when Kozmo and UrbanFetch died appreciate your support, Donald. Because, really, nothing says "I Love You" more than "Glad you're unemployed!"
]]>I dunno if that's a jesting political statement or what, but it gave me an excuse to look at a lot of maps.
The Columbia area has been Morningside Heights for a long, long time. There have also been many other neighborhood names, which historically have been very elastic and have adjusted according to the ethnicity and class of a neighborhood's residents, and the desirability of the property. You'll even get city agencies which disagree, or at least show widely varying degrees of accuracy. For example:
MTA Bus Map
Department of City Planning.
Neither is very accurate. They just stick on a big neighborhood label and let the margins define themselves.
In regards to the changing of neighborhood names, you can see several striking things about this map from 1920. Little Africa? Well, the neighborhood's there, it's just called something else. Little Italy is now Spanish Harlem; nothing's left of the Italian neighborhood except a couple of Italian restaurants, a barber and a bunch of ancient pensioners.
One thing you find consistent about historical maps of New York City is that Morningside Park appears to be a dividing line between Harlem and whatever the Columbia University area was called by the cartographer. For this reason, Harlem for me has alwasa been the neighborhood extending from the Harlem River which separates Manhattan from the Bronx. That leaves space to the north and west for Washington Heights, Manhattanville, Morningside Heights, Manhattan Valley, and one time Bloomingdale. You will consistently see the name "Harlem" applied more to the eastern side of the island, on maps as far back as 1868. An example from 1903, and for another see the Bloomingdale map above. Also, this map from 1807, which shows the "Haerlem Marsh" coming inland from the Harlem River to the east. (Also, check out the little known "Great Barn Island.")
]]>The business model was good: we built a system that allowed us to easily, quickly and cheaply set-up for grocers who already offered home delivery services. For a small fee and help doing data-entry, these grocers would be up and taking online orders within a month or two.
It all went well until they went corporate, public, greedy. Aw well. ;)
]]>Cute (especially since I'm quite the socialist myself) but why are you insulting the intelligence of your neighbors? No one forced them into hard labor camps, and a job in hard times that doesn't involve illegal activities is better than no job, and c'mon, kozmo and urbanfetch weren't frigging sweatshops by any sense of the word.
]]>I miss Kozmo -- I was living in Atlanta (and thus, I guess, partly responsible for its demise.) Downtown Atlanta has NOTHING after 6pm, and I hated to have to get my car out just to go to the grocery store or rent a movie. Kozmo was a godsend for the gallon of milk, the magazine, the rental DVD, the Ben & Jerry's fix.
I did get a buncha cool movies when they liquidated though.
]]>Really, though, the key metrics are "Time Spent Online Looking For Everything To Buy Relative To Going Out And Buying It Yourself" and "How Long Before Users Throw Their Hands Up In Frustration And Go Away Forever". If you handle both of those well, any mildly clueful business development team can make a successful online grocery site in most American cities larger than, say, 250,000. (I worked for HomeGrocer [erm, not this HG, which just bought our identity], where they were almost that clueful, and then for Webvan, where they couldn't find their ass with a map, a compass, a mirror, an extra set of hands, and the audio book of "Finding Your Ass for Dummies".)
]]>And I can just as easily say "The streets in Harlem are paved with gold." My ability to say it doesn't make it necessarily so ...
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