[techsupporter]

Even if they hadn't expanded beyond Seattle, Seattle is their "home market" where lots of their employees live and a rather good market for a wide-availability grocer. Fred Meyer stores nor its QFC sibling hold a candle to any halfway-decent actual-Kroger from back home. Safeway is just Tom Thumb with a 20% markup. This isn't exactly the Dallas/Fort Worth grocery region, with 11 (yes, eleven) full-service grocery chains. Besides, having innovation on a local scale probably matters as much to Amazon as innovation on a national scale because it gets them shopping data and a "test platform" that can serve as the basis for expansion.

[revelation]

Here is my problem: it's been in this perpetual beta mode since 2007.

At some point they should be done with all the market research there is to do and either go big or stop wasting resources on building gadgets for it.

[gaadd33]

Why do they have to go big all at once? What other grocery delivery services have even tried that in the past 10 years?

Freshdirect is NYC area and Philly, Peapod has a few markets but they are part of a grocery chain so everything but the last mile is take care of logistics wise. It seems like figuring out how to do it at scale and be competitive is exactly what Amazon is doing. If they can make it almost as cheap but have compelling additional features then it helps them roll it out wider.

[ghshephard]

Instead of "Market Research", and "Building Gadgets" - why not just refer to Amazon's continuing work in Grocery development as "Product Development" - eventually they may hit the right mix of devices, software, services, and pricing that allows them to heavily invest in other markets.

[gagaga]

And you're qualified to say this because?