Young Research & Publishing Inc.

Investment Research Since 1978

Disclosure

  • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Archives
    • The Final Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
    • Dick Young’s Research Key: Anecdotal Evidence Gathering
    • Crisis at Vanguard
  • Investment Analysis
    • Bonds
    • Currencies and Gold
    • Dividend Investing
    • ETFs & Funds
    • Investment Strategy
    • Retirement Investing
    • Stocks
    • The Efficient Frontier
  • Investment Counsel
  • Dynamic Maximizers®
  • Retirement Compounders®
  • Free Email Signup
  • Dick Young’s Safe America

The Retail Robot War Has a New Front: Groceries

July 22, 2019 By Jeremy Jones, CFA

By Andrey_Popov @ Shutterstock.com

One of the more critical steps Amazon took in securing its lead in the e-commerce race was the purchase of Kiva Systems, which built robots designed to speed up warehouse processes. Since then, competitors have been looking for their own robotic advantages. With Amazon entering the grocery business with its purchase of Whole-Foods, Kroger, America’s largest supermarket chain, is getting into the mix with its own robot offensive. Bloomberg’s Sarah Halzack reports:

Kroger Co., the giant but aging supermarket chain, has unleashed a flurry of initiatives to ensure it won’t get thumped in a post-Amazon-buying-Whole-Foods world: It is revamping locations, bought a meal-kit company, and sold off its convenience-store business. Its biggest gamble, though, is a partnership with British online grocer Ocado Group Plc. The two plan to build as many as 20 automated grocery warehouses in the U.S. to help Kroger turbocharge its e-commerce operation.

Grocery has proven a uniquely tough business to bring into the online era. Orders often have dozens of items – some frozen, some cold, some room temperature – and much of the inventory is perishable. That simply makes for a different challenge than the one Amazon.com Inc. has successfully tackled by getting a single laptop computer or phone charger on your doorstep in one day.

Ocado has focused specifically on digital grocery shopping for its entire corporate life, and it shows. At its newest online grocery fulfillment center outside London, 1,000 robots zoom around a grid at a speed of four meters (13 feet) per second, extending a gripper to pick up and transport bins of groceries. The system strips out labor costs and enables human workers to pack about 600 items per hour. Every aspect of the fulfillment process is designed for the unique quirks of grocery, including systems that cue workers about what items in a given order they should put in a single grocery bag. (This ensures, for example, that something heavy doesn’t plop onto a dozen eggs.) Ocado estimates its system saves one hour of labor for every 50-item order – no small thing in a segment of retail with notoriously thin profit margins.

Read more here.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

You Might Also Like:

  • Walmart’s Robot Army
  • Cyber-War: Walmart Wants Amazon’s Ad Business
  • Wal-Mart Employs Guerrilla Tactics in Retail War
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Jeremy Jones, CFA
Jeremy Jones, CFA, CFP® is the Director of Research at Young Research & Publishing Inc., and the Chief Investment Officer at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. was ranked #10 in CNBC's 2019 Financial Advisor Top 100. Jeremy is also a contributing editor of youngresearch.com.
Latest posts by Jeremy Jones, CFA (see all)
  • Corporations Rush to Reap Equity Windfall - January 22, 2021
  • Investors Are Being Conditioned Not To Recognise the Danger - January 21, 2021
  • What Is the Stock Market’s Link to the Economy? - January 20, 2021

Search Young Research

Most Popular

  • The Fed is Sacrificing Retirees to Save the Banks
  • Dick Young’s Safe America: Chapter 1, Part I
  • I’ve Been in Richard Young’s Maximizers for Years
  • Vanguard Wellesley (VWINX) vs. Wellington (VWELX): Which Fund is Best?
  • The Power of a Compound Interest Table
  • Whether Through Audacity or Ignorance, Stock Fundamentals Are Being Ignored
  • The Highest Yielding S&P 500 Stocks
  • Smith Family Robinson in Live Free or Die, NH
  • Jim Simons's Renaissance Technologies vs. Internet Forum Traders
  • February RAGE Gauge: Americans Focusing on What's In Front of Them

Don’t Miss

Default Risk Among the Many Concerns with Annuities

Risk and Reward: An Efficient Frontier

How to be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth

Could this Be the Vanguard GNMA Winning Edge?

Cryptocosm and Life After Google

Warning: Avoid Mutual Fund Year End Distributions

Is Gold a Good Long-term Investment?

How to Invest in Gold

Vanguard Wellington (VWELX): The Original Balanced Fund

What is the Best Gold ETF for Investing and Trading?

Procter & Gamble (PG) Stock: The Only True Dividend King

The Dividend King of the North

You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life

RSS The Latest at Richardcyoung.com

  • Absentee Ballots Not Verified
  • SARS-CoV-2: Probability of Outdoor Airborne Transmission Very Low
  • Your Personal Safety: Concealed-Carry How to Carry Your Freedom
  • Mostly Peaceful, Ungovernable Protestors
  • Biden’s Inaugural, the Most Confusing, Contradictory, Incoherent Ever?
  • Is the GOP Over? Not Even Close: Here’s Why
  • Impeaching an Ex-President is Unconstitutional
  • Ten Republican Senators to Get Behind
  • Why Do Government Officials Want To Silence Their Opponents?
  • And 2022 Is Right Around the Corner

About Us

  • About Young Research
  • Archives
  • Contributors

Our Partners

  • Richard C. Young & Co.
  • Richardcyoung.com

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Pinterest

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.