SunMatrix Ramble

A mobile grocery store pulls up outside your door. You unlock it with a code, step up to the vehicle, pick what you want from everyday items and meal kits, and you are done. This spring, Robomart, a California-based company, teams up with grocery chain Stop & Shop to trial what it positions as a driverless grocery store service in Boston, Massachusetts.

What Robomart is solving in grocery

Only a tiny fraction of the $1 trillion grocery market moves online. Two reasons dominate. On-demand delivery is prohibitively expensive for retailers. And for many shoppers, it matters to pick their own food.

How the Robomart experience works

The flow is designed to feel like the convenience of the old door-to-door model, updated with autonomous tech.

1. You summon the mobile store using a mobile app.
2. When it arrives outside your door, you tap in a code to unlock the doors.
3. You grab what you want from the on-board selection of everyday items and meal kits.

The bigger pattern. Autonomy makes “door-to-door” scalable

For decades, consumers have the convenience of a local greengrocer, milkman, or ice-cream vendor coming door to door. It rarely makes economic sense to scale. The claim here is that driverless technology changes the cost equation enough to make the model viable at scale.

A second proof point. Nuro and Kroger’s autonomous lockers

A similar model shows up in summer 2018, when Nuro teams up with supermarket giant Kroger for autonomous grocery delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona. The mechanics differ. It is not a roaming mini-store. It is pre-picked orders loaded into secure lockers. But the handoff is the same. A code unlocks your groceries.

• Customers place an order with Kroger via a smartphone app.
• Staff load the autonomous pod’s secure lockers with the customer order at the depot.
• When the “R1” autonomous delivery pod arrives, the customer taps in a code to open the locker and access their groceries.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Robomart, in this post?
A driverless grocery store service you summon via app, then unlock with a code to pick items directly from the vehicle.

Where does the Stop & Shop trial take place?
Boston, Massachusetts.

Why has grocery been slow to move online?
On-demand delivery is expensive for retailers, and consumers often prefer to pick their own food.

What is the comparable example mentioned?
Nuro and Kroger’s autonomous grocery delivery service in Scottsdale, Arizona, using an “R1” pod with secure lockers opened by code.