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Dear Diary
November 22  
  www.ThanksgivingShoppingWithHomerunsIsABreeze.com.  Once again, Homeruns delivers.  Last night, I placed my Thanksgiving grocery order with Homeruns; I had not used Homeruns since beginning my trial with Streamline.  The tradeoffs in the two services are fairly apparent.  We have the evil empire of Emperor Palpatine on one side and the Grocers of Goodness on the other (I leave it to the reader to assign roles).

My delivery time slot was 10:30 am - 12:30 pm.  Even without a special request, delivery occurred at 11:10 am.  All of the items were placed on the counter.  It took me about four minutes to put everything away (For Streamline orders, it can take about 10-15 minutes to lug the items to the kitchen and then put them away).

The tradeoffs in the two services as I perceive them now:

                                                 Homeruns                              StreamLine
Product Selection                     Ok to Good.                             Extensive and Impressive.

Delivery Times                         Any day of the week                 Once per week on a day
                                                    during a 2-hour                           of their choice between 
                                                    window between                         8 am - 6 pm.
                                                    8 am - 10 pm.

Grocery Hauling                       Minimal -- items placed on        Schlep items to car -- no.
                                                     kitchen counter.                        Schlep items to kitchen -- yes.
                                                                                                     Items are in containers, not bags,
                                                                                                     which makes the schlepping
                                                                                                     more difficult.

Customer Service Availability     8 am - 12 midnight                   I believe 24 hours as I
                                                                                                        have received replies at
                                                                                                        all hours.  Very fast response
                                                                                                        to requests.

Item Special Requests                 Yes.  Example:  12-14 lbs         Not that I know of.
                                                      Turkey closer to 14 lbs.
                                                      (13.54 lbs delivered)

General Special Requests          Yes, conveniently on the            Yes (I guess) through the
                                                       order form.                               bulletin board.

Item Pricing                                Competitive with                        Competitive with bricks-
                                                       bricks-and-mortar.                     and-mortar.

Delivery Pricing                          Free if order $60+                     $0.00
                                                    $10 if order less than $60

Monthly Subscription Fee           No                                            $30

Introductory Special                   $10 off first order                      $50-$75 off first order
                                                                                                   $30 monthly subscription
                                                                                                         fee waived for first
                                                                                                         two months.

Coupons                                      Accepted                                   Not that I know of.

On Sale Items                              Not really.                                 Yes.  Even for typical
                                                                                                         on deal items such
                                                                                                         as orange juice.

Junk Mail                                   No.                                            "Delete" message button
                                                                                                          conveniently available.

Website                                      Reasonably good.                       Very good.

Forget to bring large                  No, they don't                             This can definitely
food bins downstairs,                     leave any bins                               happen when one
and as a result they                        behind                                          is distracted by the
clutter up the kitchen                                                                         antics of a three or
                                                                                                          one year old.

Redemption bottles and cans       Up to 50                                    One time they took
                                                                                                           490 of them.

Other services                             Videos for sale                            Video rental,
                                                    Some flowers                              Dry cleaning
                                                                                                       Shoe repair
                                                                                                       Some Legal Sea Food
                                                                                                       Water dispenser service

On paper the differences might appear subtle; I believe, however, that the experiences are significantly different.  I still prefer Homeruns, largely because delivery can occur on any day of the week (when you need food, you need food) and because they place the items on my kitchen counter.  Streamline's selection is far superior to that of Homeruns.  Life is full of tradeoffs.  Both are clearly superior to shopping at bricks-and-mortar supermarkets.

Many people that I know who use Streamline, claim to love it.  They probably grocery shop at bricks-and-mortar markets at least once per week and a) can always get food this way when they need it, and b) still experience the travel and lugging of grocery bags associated with this, and hence, view Streamline shopping as a relatively preferred method.  I wonder how many of them have tried Homeruns.  It would be interesting to conduct experiments to compare the utilities of the various attributes above in order to determine the optimal online grocery service and consumer choice (sorry about getting academic).

   
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  Boston, Fall 99 | Copyright Bruce Weinberg