Word: webvan
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Think online grocers are forgotten relics from the dotcom boom days? Not so. Webvan, the e-grocery pioneer that was supposed to revolutionize the way people shop, is dead and gone, but the idea behind it lives on. According to Jupiter Research, consumers this year will buy more than $2 billion worth of groceries online--more than three times what they spent in Webvan's heyday back...
...Pasadena, Calif. "The more money that companies retain to invest in the future, the worse their future turns out to be." Consider that Priceline wrote off $67 million in 2000, partly from its goofy venture into groceries and gasoline, while Amazon incinerated $233 million by "investing" in dotbombs like Webvan and Ashford.com Last year, jds Uniphase booked the biggest loss ever recorded--$56 billion--as it wrote off the costs of its overpriced acquisitions...
...word: yes. Like dotcom flameouts Kozmo.com and Webvan, the Standard followed the mantra--first popularized by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos--of Get Big Fast. Hundreds of reporters were hired. A New York City office opened. A second magazine, Grok, was launched (though quickly abandoned). Conference costs spiraled. Lease commitments for tony office space were more than $50 million. "We were very aggressive," editor in chief Jonathan Weber said last Friday from the magazine's suddenly empty offices. "We took funding from venture capitalists and had a high-growth strategy. It's clear from hindsight that wasn't the best idea...
...clock is ticking, and it may tick a little faster now," says Pat Steele, executive vice president in charge of Albertson's high-tech experiment in Seattle. His online sales have jumped 300% in the week since Webvan's demise. "The next three to six months will be the telling time...
That's when GroceryWorks.com half owned by Safeway, is set to reopen after a brief hiatus in Texas and roll out elsewhere in the West. The company won't say where, but the Bay Area seems a soft touch in the wake of Webvan. The British firm Tesco, whose two-year-old delivery website is already breaking even in Britain, just took a 35% stake in GroceryWorks. com and will supply the in-store technology...