Have online grocers or drug stores become practical?
It’s a pretty safe bet that there is no way to deliver small quantity, small value orders to widely distributed locations at the same price as local retail stores, and certainly not for same-day or next-day delivery. For example, for drugstore.com, the cost of goods is probably on the order of 50%, meaning that a $10 order provides only $5 to cover shipping, warehouse costs (picking and boxing the item), credit card charges, administrative costs, marketing, and a host of other things. So if UPS wants (say) $7 to deliver the package on the next day, the (hypothetical) company is already $2 in the hole. So why (and how) does amazon.com or drugstore.com or others offer free shipping on orders as low as (say) $25? First, Jeff Bezos has said repeatedly that he is willing to sacrifice profitability for market share. Second, you’re not going to get the package on the next day – in fact, if you order a book from Amazon, it may be five or more business days before it arrives (free of shipping c
