Online grocery shopping, again?

When I was in Florida recently, I noticed a billboard for PublixDirect, an online grocery shopping service.

My first thought was that my parents, who already shop at Publix, might be able to use PublixDirect.

My second thought was one of disbelief. I did a sort of mental double take. Online grocery shopping? Hadn't the idea died with the flameout of WebVan?

Among all of the dotcom disaster stories, WebVan was among the most notorious. The company planned to develop technologically sophisticated warehouses and distribution centers across the U.S. Within just a few years, ordering raisin bran and yogurt from your PC would be the norm; WebVan would transform an industry. Consumers were reluctant to adopt WebVan in the cities where it was available, but the company raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors. And lost it. The company declared bankruptcy and shut down in the summer of 2001.

During the frenzy of dotcom failures, including WebVan's, I sometimes wondered whether, two or three years hence -- or maybe even further into the future -- some of these ideas would return. Maybe they were ahead of their time. Would future entrepreneurs revive them? Would another WebVan appear, perhaps when consumers were more acclimated to online shopping?

When I saw the PublixDirect billboard, I had a brief flash: It's happening.

Of course, it's not.

Consider PublixDirect. The site's parent company already operates a supermarket chain. Rather than being a dotcom startup, akin to WebVan or any of a number of other infamous dotcom failures, it is essentially an extension of a non-Internet business. PublixDirect isn't building warehouses across the U.S. It isn't asking investors to believe it will transform an industry. It is simply providing its customers in South Florida with another option for grocery shopping, for a fee ($7.95 per order).

Other supermarket chains have also experimented with online ordering. And a New York-based company, FreshDirect, is starting to offer online grocery delivery in parts of Manhattan and Queens, specializing in fresh produce, meats, and other high-quality perishables.

This isn't a return to 1999. But these examples demonstrate the way a number of companies, both existing ones and startups, are taking Internet ideas, however discredited, and trying to establish profitable businesses with more organic plans for growth.

In fact, it's hard to find an Internet business, no matter how off-the-wall, that's vanished completely. Someone is doing it, somewhere, even if it's on a scale that's not all about IPOs and industry dominance. And so, while no one really expects to see the return of the dotcom frenzy, we're seeing ideas, once maligned, returning in less ambitious ways.

In Manhattan, for instance, NYCTOGO.COM offers online ordering of food and other items by relaying orders to local delis and restaurants. Urban delivery services, such as Kozmo (with its own warehouses and delivery people), were heralded as surefire successes -- who wouldn't want bagels and videos delivered to your home? -- but the businesses couldn't make it with their grandiose, fast-growth plans. A company like NYCTOGO.COM, operating on a more modest scale, provides similar services, yet without all the hoopla.

The rules have changed, certainly toward a more sane way of developing businesses. And while NYCTOGO.COM, PublixDirect and other burgeoning Internet ventures aren't likely to transform entire industries single-handedly, or build new ones -- the goals of many a failed dot-com -- you never know. Didn't McDonald's start small?

By Allan Hoffman
Last updated: Monday, Jan. 6, 2003, 8:04 am