DoorDash, Gopuff, Jokr: Instant delivery and the promise of customer convenience

I could simply place a mobile order, and retrieve it at the store without waiting in line.This kind of frictionless convenience is wildly appealing and seemingly everywhere now; it’s especially pronounced in transactional spaces, whether it be a Starbucks, the local grocery store, or the airport. People are angrier, meaner, and more prone to throwing childish tantrums in front of service staff, as detailed in a recent New York Times feature titled, “A nation on hold wants to speak with a manager.” It doesn’t help that we’re two years into a pandemic that has burst the country’s bubble of abundance (read: supply chain issues and rampant inflation).Companies, especially those in public-facing industries, are contending with a shortage of available workers while struggling to meet the old-fashioned service standards set in a very different time. This might seem like an individual consumer choice, but it is informed by a post-pandemic retail and service landscape that can be hostile to ordinary shoppers.In October, tech writer Drew Austin remarked how his regular trips to convenience stores and pharmacies in New York City have become littered with unexpected inconveniences. We’re effectively trespassing in the company’s warehouse.” Manhattan resembles “a post-Covid retail wasteland,” he continued, populated by vacated chain stores that are being converted into instant delivery hubs. This switch will likely cost businesses more money, compared to having customers enter a store and pick out the items they want. Soon, retail employees might be too swamped meeting delivery quotas to be relieved that customers are no longer demanding to speak to a manager.