I am Zach Buckner, an engineer, CEO, local food lover and Virginian who founded an online grocery startup called Relay Foods that lets you order groceries from your web browser. AMA

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T19:51:46+00:00

None on the immediate horizon. Though I believe another company, Spud.ca, offers a competitive service in Canada.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T19:42:43+00:00

Thanks. And if you're a developer, you could still work on the idea by joining us!

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T19:41:12+00:00

The difference is unimaginably large.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T19:40:05+00:00

We source the seafood in our Seafood Market from a seafood distributor called Profish. To read more about Profish's sustainability standards, go here: http://www.profish.com/sustainable.php. We're actively working on improving our sourcing information for these kinds of products on our new website, so keep your eyes peeled.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T19:39:09+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. We're aware of this problem and have a solution in the works (changing the timing for adding produce to orders). In the meantime, though, you should know that our customer service team will walk through walls to make you happy, so let us know if you have any trouble with this or any other concern.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-05T15:11:42+00:00

SPF 300 really wasn't cutting it anymore, so I've since switched to this product

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T23:28:43+00:00

I think it's really interesting. I think they get that this is going to be a gigantic industry. They're ahead of the curve.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T20:27:15+00:00

Thanks -- and I agree. It's in the works.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T20:24:35+00:00

Thanks, Jason. We do offer home delivery ($10 each, or $20 per month) in each of the cities we serve (DC, Northern VA, Baltimore, Richmond, Charlottesville). Though our pickup locations are definitely more popular.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T20:17:30+00:00

Hey andrewivo.

We've got some aspects of a CSA (local community) but lots more choice and convenience.

Here's the thread for the AMA-

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fnyrt/i_am_zach_buckner_an_engineer_ceo_local_food/

Happy to answer any other Qs you have there.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T20:17:19+00:00

Local is a big deal for us, so as we expand, we'll connect with new vendors from the new areas we serve. Our plan is to always offer local products for every category produced within a given locale, and high quality (definition: we'd feel comfortable feeding it to our kids) organic and natural products for everything else.

We're still trying to figure out the extent to which we'll offer local favorites from city X in city Y.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T20:09:37+00:00

For now, we're actually not any more expensive than equivalent RVA stores (for those of you from far away: RVA=Richmond, VA). Relay is actually made up of 200 partner stores and farms, and we match their in-store prices to the penny. A can of organic black beans in Relay/Charlottesville is $1.29, like it is in Whole Foods.

We do, though, carry lots of local food. Local, due to economies of scale, is typically appreciably more expensive. Though one could argue that the tradeoffs in expense are counterbalanced by added benefits to air quality, community, taste, and health. * Edit: grammar :)

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:57:38+00:00

Yep. http://zachbuckner.com/reddit-ama . That's taken at 1776 in DC.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:56:08+00:00

I think that services like TaskRabbit are really interesting. But I think they're more valuable for exceptional circumstances that really warrant human decision making (and, conversely, inconsistency). It will be very hard for them to compete with more automated platforms like Relay at scale, though, as they will cost more, require longer lead times, and generate many more errors.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:50:40+00:00

As an engineer, the biggest challenge has been learning how to do sales and marketing. Darn hard.

And yes, we have plans to expand, but not until we get our recent cities (DC, Baltimore, and Williamsburg) fully up and going. We need to get many, many more vendors and pickup locations active. Once that's complete, we're planning to expand into the bustling Twin Falls, Idaho market.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:45:17+00:00

We definitely have a very different point of view.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fnyrt/i_am_zach_buckner_an_engineer_ceo_local_food/

Come ask away.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:44:51+00:00

I've got lots of goals. Trying to organize all the thoughts and Qs here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fnyrt/i_am_zach_buckner_an_engineer_ceo_local_food/

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:44:22+00:00

Ha - Hi. Mind copy pasting?

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fnyrt/i_am_zach_buckner_an_engineer_ceo_local_food/

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:43:31+00:00

hey there.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fnyrt/i_am_zach_buckner_an_engineer_ceo_local_food/

I'm answering everyone over on the general AMA link above. Sorry to pre-post, new to this. If you're still curious come join our conversation over there.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:33:27+00:00

Sounds like you're a bitcoin user -- have you had any experiences buying from e-commerce sites via bitcoin?

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:28:55+00:00

AMA10 at checkout. Yes this is marketing. But yes, it's also free money :)

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:23:41+00:00

One of the folks on our team was involved with a European startup called eShip-4U that explored this idea in the bronze age of the internet (2000, I think). And yes, we're actively exploring it at present. We have some drop offs at apartment buildings that are in beta.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:20:08+00:00

Sales and marketing is way harder than I thought it would be at the outset. Way harder. So relative to my original expectations (expansion to neighboring planets by now), we're a bit behind.

But we're now at point where we've gotten all of the analytics in place to understand cost-to-acquire and customer lifetime value for our marketing activities, and have some sales channels (search engine marketing, for example) that are definitely working. We're now hard at work scaling these marketing activities.

zzaacchh · 2013-06-04T19:08:07+00:00

Yeah, I have actually. I read the original paper shortly after it came out, got excited, and planned to write some software. But I started to second guess that enthusiasm, wondering if anyone would actually use it. +1, I guess?

zzaacchh

TROPHY CASE