Grocers stock online shelves.
Safeway conducted tests to determine whether it should develop a solution internally, and ultimately decided against in-house development. Other stores would disagree with Hagar's assessment, Boise, Idaho-based Albertson's has decided to go ahead with building out its capabilities internally. And, although the company declined to comment on the progress, analysts are saying that more deals similar to the ones last week are likely. Online grocer pioneer WebVan believes that it can succeed as an online-only channel and sees storefronts as unnecessary. These partnerships are just validating the assertion that customers will shop for items like groceries online.