Word: webvan
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...ambitious, but they couldn't have grabbed so much venture capital if they weren't. Investors were eyeing IPO riches." Not that either company was particularly frugal with the wealth Wall Street brought. Their combined bonfire consumed more than $860 million, not counting the undisclosed seven-figure sum Webvan paid the San Francisco Giants to sponsor all the cupholders at Pacific Bell Park...
...online groceries do have a future. Jupiter Media Metrix still expects e-grocers to flourish into an $11 billion business, ringing up 2% of total grocery sales, by 2006. But the future is more likely to arrive at your local supermarket than Webvan-style 100,000-sq.-ft. distribution centers. Safeway and Albertsons are preparing to roll out what is known as the "store-pick" model--you order online, and a professional shopper (O.K., a teenager with a produce chart) picks out the goods at your nearest supermarket, as opposed to a dedicated warehouse. Then you either get same...
...Webvan needs to beware the ides of next March; that's when it has said it'll need more cash to keep operating. Few analysts expect them to get it. Sand Hill Road - world capital of venture capitalists - is just a short drive down route 101 from Webvan, but the VCs are unlikely to open their doors again to a company that has already burned through $480 million; a dotcom that planned to serve 23 markets by now but is mired in just seven. Ironically, plenty of VCs are Webvan customers (San Francisco and Silicon Valley being...
...what went wrong with Webvan? I can't personally say if it was anything to do with their delivery service being lousy, since I've never actually had a Webvan delivery. I would like to have one - it's not like I have a particular desire to waste precious minutes squeezing vegetables amidst harsh halogen lights and Muzak - but every time I made an order on the website, it told me delivery was not possible in the next 48 hours. What, they think I know I'm going to run out of milk three days ahead of time...
...possible that I got burned at unusually busy moments. A good friend of mine does swear by Webvan, even though she lives right next door to a supermarket. It could just be that she has a crush on the delivery guy. Whatever the reason, Webvan's near-inevitable crash and burn is clearly going to be a great loss for many folks around here, just as the untimely passing of Urbanfetch and Kozmo.com - both of which delivered videos, ice cream and munchies to your door within an hour - made a lot of us feel like wearing black. I still...