Timothy J. Richards,Ph.D. and Paul M. Patterson,Ph. Some of the more ballyhooed web startups have been the grocery shopping services. These services have been touted as a way of providing a value added service in the form of convenience to the ever time-starved consumer.
Consumers can comparison shop, even for groceries, from the convenience of their home.
By providing consumers with a low-cost source of information regarding competing vendors' prices, selection, and service, the entire shopping experience will become more efficient, potentially reducing consumer prices. The impact of providing more information to the market place on prices is well documented. In the 1970's several studies showed that the provision of price information through advertisements or other public notices resulted in lower gasoline, grocery, and eyeglass prices for consumers. For the web to have this impact, though, it requires this form of shopping to become a realistic alternative to strolling the store's aisles. To date, many e-commerce grocery services have stumbled and their projected shares of total grocery sales are minuscule.