Daniel Ross

I am glad to read that you are an apple junkie like me. I like to say I drink “the apple juice.” When hearing about the new Apple Event, I immediately thought, “oh God, what now! I just brought my new phone.” HAHA., Good old Apple, just a marketing genius that knows how to make you empty your pockets.

Thank you for the insight to the updates. I have yet to update as well due to not keeping my phone on the charger for long. Even though Android might have had the features offered to their customer base, doesn’t necessarily means that Apple is hijacking Android ideas. Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and come up with an entirely new concept to be successful. I think Apple is listening to their customer base and giving them what they want. Keeping their ear to the street drives their innovation.

Example is the swipe keyboard. People have been discussing the swipe keyboard and touchscreen for Apple on every forum. Yes, Android had a swipe keyword long before Apple. However, I don’t think this is a case for keeping up with the Jones’. I believe Apple is focusing on the needs and wants of customers even if those needs and wants are features that the competition is offering,

I am still holding out for the touchscreen MacBook!

I do Giant pick up all the time! Mine isn’t nearly as hands on however. After waiting, sometimes up to a week for me to be able to get a timeslot to pick up my groceries, I get a text of when I can pick up my order and that is pretty much it, I dont even get notified if they don’t have an item in stock that I am ordering and they make a replacement. I couldn’t tell you how many times I didn’t even get half of the items I ordered by the time I picked it up curbside. I love how much you actually got to interact with your shopper and they made suggestions on substitutions. My Giant curbside 100% needs to step up its game.

I am very skeptical about doing grocery delivery including Amazon Fresh. I enjoy grocery shopping and so many times I have been there I leave with more than I thought I would. The eliminate of finding sales and going through clearance as well as changing my mind about what I am cooking to get different ingredients all comes with the terriority of shopping. I really like how in the app you can shop the exact aisles and it has personalization based on your purchases.

The innovation of Whole Foods and Amazon had me curious to try the service as my office is right above Whole Foods. With a specific recipe in mind, I think I could give it a try since there are specific things I would need rather than a random shopping trip where I would be proned to wonder. On the Amazon App, they make it pretty easy to access Whole Foods and shop specific aisles. It also makes it beneficial to learn to the store.

This post however has inclined my interest to try out the delivery service. I like the aspect of being able to communicate with the person shopping for me in real time. The fact that we are staying at home and limiting our mobility, the technology that we are using on a daily basis is becoming more important to our livelihood.

One of my favorite past times is to figure out the “shortcut” people are missing when I’m out and about and don’t feel like waiting in line.

Yesterday, it was extremely non-technical. The line for the outdoor registers at Solebury Orchards wrapped halfway back into the fields. The indoor register, however, had no line… Whether it was because of preference to be outside, the capacity limit that had the person at the door turning away groups (which may have looked like it was closed) or simply a lack of critical thinking, I got a good chuckle as I walked back to my car past the crowd and counted the number of signs that read “Two registers also open outside”. How many people would have kicked themselves after waiting all that time in line that “also open outside” implies something must be open inside!

I’ve had similar experiences to you Aksana and I always feel doubly happy with my purchase for “outsmarting” the system.

This is the approach that I encourage you all to embrace as you go about your life. Just because everything appears to be following a certain order doesn’t mean that has to be the only path for you.

Because I haven’t shared enough Disney anecdotes, I’ll end this comment with a technical equivalent to skipping the line. Disney holds a fixed # of reservations for all the “FastPass” rides. The first couple of days, it was so disheartening to run out of fastpasses and know there was no shot of getting another pass for our large group of 5 (you have to clear your first 3 before you can reserve another). My discovery: one five-person reservation was a lost cause, but five one-person reservations worked nearly every time! Single-riders are the greatest advantage at theme parks, but Disney does not require single-rider Fast Pass to ride alone. They give you a roughly hour window to go on the ride. As long as all five overlapped by a few minutes, the hack worked!

Great post, Aksana! I do wish that they would take it a step further and let you pay for those items online but still leave the store with them in hand. It kind of sucks that you have to have them shipped to your address, when you are there with them physically within reach already. This wouldn’t be plausible for some people who say need toilet paper because they ran out or need some other time right away. However, I do love that this process is so frictionless and that they make it easy by letting you scan a barcode!

Thanks for sharing this, Aksana! I related all too much to this experience you had in the shopping mall. I live in Philadelphia with four other roommates and during COVID-19, we receive a package to our door step at least once a day. We joke about how dangerously easy it is to spend money, but it’s true! These frictionless experiences are a gift and a curse. Of course, without them my wallet would probably be better off, I would ultimately make less purchases if they required more effort or weren’t as seamless. I try to support local businesses as much as possible, but the sad truth of the matter is that they don’t have the means or budgets to provide such experiences. I have found myself in a store, waiting or comparing to prices to other stores on my phone and eventually deciding to buy something online and have it shipped to me – free of charge. I hate to say it, but Amazon gets a lot of my business because they have created the ideal customer journey and a completely seamless experience.