As seniors with underlying health issues, my wife and I have made the decision to commit to buying all groceries and supplies online, until the risks of this virus are greatly diminished. For the past three weeks, we have been testing a variety of online grocery service providers. This is what we have learned.

Grocery shoppers and online service providers were caught off-guard by the speed with which Covid-19 has changed purchasing behavior for both online and in-store grocery shoppers. Empty shelves and “out of stock” notifications have become the norm as self-quarantining, “panic buying,” hoarding, and the closure of restaurants and bars have dramatically altered buyer purchasing volumes. Therefore, rather than critique any specific online providers under these circumstances, I will share a few general observations on some of the challenges my wife and I have faced and offer some opportunities for improvement.

1. Expand the Range of Delivery Options

For one of Canada’ leading online grocery providers, it is nearly impossible to select a date and time for a delivery. They provide a one-month window usually with no available time slots. When you call the 1-800 line for assistance, it is always busy. You can sit at your computer all day and wait for a time slot to become available. That is not a good use of one’s time and is very stressful in these already stressful times.

The grocery business is about an $800 billion market in the United States and about $80 billion in Canada. This is one sector of the retail market where Amazon has not achieved a significant beachhead in either country. With the deal to buy Whole Foods, the online retailer will have a small slice of the grocery market (about 1.2% in the United States) in North America, which is dominated by a handful of firms like Walmart (14.2%) and Kroger (7.2%) in the United States and Loblaw Companies, Metro Inc. and Sobeys in Canada.

Last year, the online shopping giant launched Amazon Go, an experimental grocery store with no checkout counter that's currently open to Amazon employees in Seattle. Amazon also opened its first brick-and-mortar book store in Seattle in 2015, and has since expanded to New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The company is said to be evaluating various physical retail experiments that range from futuristic Home-Depot-like stores that incorporate augmented reality to Apple-like electronics boutiques, according to The New York Times. Amazon's acquisition gives the company 431 physical Whole Foods locations to potentially flesh out new concepts.

Amazon’s entry into the grocery market will expose the company to an incredible array of commodities and supply chain variables.