As part of Amazon’s continuing efforts to sell me everything under the sun, they’ve recently been promoting their Grocery section, a collection of pantry staples and whatnot that are, to my very great joy, eligible for Amazon Prime shipping.
Let me just say, I love me some Amazon. When I was a broke college student, Amazon was often able to save me money over the college bookstore prices, even with shipping. When a friend tells me about a new book I simply must read, Amazon always has it, which is a lot more than I can say for my local library. When an artist I like has only released an album in Europe and I’m going to have to wait months for it here… Amazon comes through for me. When it’s time to do Christmas shopping and I hate going to the mall, Amazon has something for everyone on my list. And since Tom and I essentially buy a year’s worth of free two-day shipping with Amazon Prime, we don’t have to stack our orders to save on shipping, and it’s a great way to dispatch a gift to a loved one quickly. (Amazon Prime isn’t a great deal for everyone, but it’s a great deal for the Bridge house.)
But I’m thinking that Amazon Grocery isn’t going to work for me most of the time. Amazon has done a very smart thing for its business- it has picked out a bunch of non-perishable, light-weight products that it can afford to give away shipping on (Super Saver). Since these products are mostly convenience foods- Easy Mac, soup mixes in cups or envelopes, Crystal Light To Go packets- they overlap heavily with the diet of the demographic of person who will want to buy their groceries through Amazon.
But they’re short on a lot of things that are ingredients. I can get umpteen varieties of boxed black beans and rice dishes or black bean soup mixes, for example, but there’s not a plain can of black beans… only “Caribbean style.” Since we’re trying to Eat Less Fake Shit, there’s not a ton that Amazon Grocery can offer us. Even our beloved Peach Fresca, which is one item of Fake Shit that we’re just not willing to give up, isn’t available.
And it makes sense- shipping companies charge by weight, so while it might make sense to make shipping cheap for me for a $25 book, it doesn’t make sense to make it cheap to ship me an 89cent can of beans.
So we’ll probably still put in the occasional order for Crystal Light or breakfast cereal through Amazon, but our grocery shopping will still be done primarily through Wegmans… and the shiny new Harris Teeter that just opened in our neighborhood.
