The retail apocalypse

I am just guessing. I have never tried ordering groceries online. I have ordered fast food from Grubhub.

That's a real name. I thought it was a slang term Chai used for all her uber type work.

Thank you, and even though it's not a British company, I still value having the knowledge.

Speaking of retail changes I truly miss reading a hard copy newspaper while drinking coffee in the morning.

In some large areas of the nation you can not buy a local newspaper during the week any longer.

Why bother buying newspapers when you can read them online?

Oh yeah.

As far as On Demand services there's Grubhub, Uber Eats, Door Dash, Favor, etc.

Then there's local companies like my main gig, LunchDrop, who are really great. I don't mind going out of my way for them if asked.

As far as Grubhub, I quickely realized their drivers are just cogs in a wheel, so I soon learned to accept only the deliveries that suit me, money and travel wise.

Funny story (kinda) for GH the city is defined up into a grid, that you can click on to see where the "hot" areas are. I happen to live right on the edge of the hottest area, so when I decide to work for a couple hours, I drive maybe 1.5 miles to the very center of that hot zone.

That happens to be right in front of Elijah Woods house, where there a shady tree across the street from him, and almost always an open parking spot.
So I sit across the street from his place, rejecting 2, 3 orders in a row, before accepting a decent on.

As a more important note, I've delivered through GB to all kinds of places, business, homes, apartments. As far as delivering to private residences, overall, their market are people who really have no business paying what I consider a high delivery fee, plus tip, based on where I see they are living.

Their choice, but it's just another indicator why people stay in a constant state of finanacial insecurity.

In fact, overall the worst cases are the people who order fast food crap from Taco Bell (seems they have very strong customer loyalty) or Burger King.
Most meals are ordered from actually restaurants, pubs, food trucks (very popular here, and overall really good food, not junk).

On Sunday, I delivered Filet mignon, raw oysters and some fancy dessert to a couple nearby who lived in a swanky downtown apartment who just didn't want to go out.

Some time you just prefer to sit in a park under a tree or in a break room at work far from computers and computers networks with a coffee cup in hand.

But what about all the people who have lost their livlihood of delivering newspapers?

That seems to be the baseline of your premise about retail stores moving their base to an online presense.

You just answered your own concern. People who used to do one job start to do something else.

When newspapers were first started, would you have lamented about all the town criers that were put out of work?
What about the poor milkman (although I think some exist. Weird). Who mourns for him?

For years now people have been booking their own flights, rental cars etc.
Back in the day, if you needed to do that you went to a travel agent. They still exist, but not nearly to the extent they were.
ATM's eliminated the need for as many bank tellers. Self checkout means one less librarian.

If minimum wage was lowered, then people could compete very easily with automation because everyone involved in producing and maintaining the automation wouldn't want to lower their wages to compete with cheap human labor.

Probably a silly-sounding question but are online delivery services part of e-commerce?

E-commerce is a BIG reason why the retail apocalypse happened.

You have various types of online retailers, like Amazon and Ebay, and online bookstores and art stores.

I've searched for books online using a site called Addall.com which searches for books online and comparison shops for you and ordered a handful of books from Amazon and Barnes and Noble's website and from a number of other online bookstores.

I've ordered other products from Amazon and Barnes and Noble's website and from similar online retailers.

I've bought stuff and/or won stuff in auctions off of Ebay.

I've ordered ink for my 4-in-1 inkjet printer from online office supply stores.

I don't have to leave my house to go to an art store to buy art supplies- I can just order them online. Specific types of items that is. The art stores closest to where I live that I know of are Michaels and AC Moore, but I have to take the bus to get to them- they are at least 2 towns over. Sometimes I buy art supplies from stores at my local plaza or from any store in my hometown that carries them.

My family and I order pizza online.

I've done some of my clothes and shoe shopping online.

I've ordered health supplements from online health stores.

I still go to my local plaza to grocery shop and to my local hardware store to buy stuff and/or pick up prescription medicine from a local pharmacy- there's still an immediate need to do that.

I still have to go out and take care of business at a local bank. I still have to use ATMs.

Ordering fast food from Grubhub to me was kind of a weird experience.

Did a lot of video rental stores shut down because they were subject to the retail apocalypse?

We know the video rental industry has changed and video rental stores aren't thriving like they once were.

Video stores in America are relatively rare now:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/85304/18-awesome-video-stores-are-still-open-business

Things such as Netflix hit the video store industry. In the early days it was done with DVD discs by mail, the Internet has added in to the equation and of course YouTube which has several movies, both legally and illegally acquired. These days, there's Amazon, Hulu and Netflix in its streaming version. Maybe a few more too. Progress.

What about video rental kiosks? There's a Redbox one right outside my local supermarket.

Ah yes! Redbox. I had forgotten about that, thanks!

The thing is people are not interacting with each other in person as much and keep looking for ways to avoid person to person contact. We see it in ways to order food and merchandise and when calling about a bill and being given a list of choices with numbers to press.

So that's why companies like Grubhub came about?

Why was this question not being answered?

I'm sure part of it may have been this.

Another factor is that there is often less overhead cost. This means a greater profit for the owner/s.

Which question are you referring to?

Which question are you answering? The one specifically about Grubhub or the one here?:

https://able2know.org/topic/530910-4#post-6905786