Word: webbed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...menu to 600,000 items (superstores typically stock about 100,000). The company also promises to link the site to its 2,485 stores in 50 states, allowing online purchases to be returned off-line. "We'll even refund the shipping charges," says Glenn Habern, Wal-Mart's Web war chief...
...which owns Shop 'n' Save stores across the Eastern U.S. Hannaford set up HomeRuns.com which has upped the ante by offering a double-your-money satisfaction guarantee. It's already doing brisk business in the Boston area. That's no mean feat. Boston is a nasty little incubator of Web grocers and boasts four firms in cutthroat competition; one company, Streamline, will pay to install a fridge in your garage, allowing the Web store to make unattended deliveries...
Currently, though, Beantown is the exception. Even Peapod, the oldest and most widespread Web grocer, is available to only 8% of the U.S. population. "It's taken quite a while," admits Peapod CEO and president Bill Molloy. "Early on, people felt they didn't deserve this service yet. How could they tell their parents they didn't want to go to the store...
This long national nightmare of grocery guilt seems to be ending. Molloy thinks we will see a coast-to-coast Web-grocer conglomerate within four years, though he hesitates to say if it's going to be his company, which took a $9.4 million loss last quarter...
...most Web grocers sniff at the Walker model. Their customers are so in love with delivery, they don't even miss manhandling the fruit and vegetables. "I never knew what I was sniffing for in a cantaloupe anyway," says Molloy. Liz Stone concurs. These days, she only sets foot in a regular grocery store about once a month, for the odd item she forgot. "When we do go now, it's like a treat for the kids," she says. Children who actually enjoy supermarket shopping? The wonders of e-commerce will never cease...