Standing in line at Publix, 12 people in line, one person working, and the other lady is preparing 20 mobile orders that are for an hour in advance. So we have to stand here for 25+ mins, then we get up there… They have 50+ lunch mobile orders that day. INSANE like WTF? Why do they allow this bullshit? Starbucks locations stopped doing it. Why does Publix allow it? Stand in line like the rest of us. Bullshit man. They wouldn’t even give them another person to make subs, just 1 person for the lunch rush line.
That doesn’t sound like a mobile ordering problem. That sounds like a staffing problem.
Exactly. Imagine if all those orders weren’t mobile, and were in fact local. The queue would be insane, visually. Now you only have the queue mentally. Either way the solution is more workers.
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Don’t blame the people ordering online, they are not the problem. Publix being too greedy to hire extra staff is the problem.
Also too greedy to implement online order rate limiting so their workers won’t get overwhelmed.
This is it, really. Fundamentally, the people placing online orders just want to exchange money for lunch, same as OP.
In the old days though, they would show up, see the line was too long, and some percentage of them would leave. Publix needs to increase staffing, implement rate limiting (I think they call it “Order Throttling” in this space), or partially prioritize the people who want their sandwich bad enough to spend their own time waiting. I assume there’s some metric that would optimize it, and even if not, some reasonable guesswork (alternate prep of in-person versus mobile orders?) would help with the physical traffic jam and angry luddites (no offense, OP 🤣).
Part of the problem may be that Pubsubs in particular occupy a weird space where they’re a much-loved quick dining option while still having the infrastructure of a grocery store deli counter, and managers from that mindset. I’m sure everything is sort of kludgey and half-assed.
Publix is just a horribly run business. They should monitor someone making the subs and see how long it takes them to make subs while simultaneously addressing the growing line in store. Because it’s not right to ignore people that are standing in line and have showed up during their lunch hour at work. Like that’s totally wrong. But monitor how many mobile order subs they get through during the lunch hour, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. and how long each sub takes to make during that time… Then use that for their time estimation. I guarantee it would be a lot longer of an estimate than the ones they provide on their website. So they are basically lying to the people online, which causes a lot of anger. You see people come into the store and start getting upset because their mobile order isn’t there on time
Don’t blame the people ordering online, they are not the problem
I disagree. I see plenty of entitled, snarky people come in wondering where their mobile order is. They see a line of 20 people and they expect their mobile order to be sitting there waiting for them, but the one lady who is making all those mobile orders is severely behind because she has a pile of them to get through. Same thing with Starbucks too. Perfect example there. Lots of nasty, aggressive people come into the store demanding to know where their mobile order drink is because they placed it two minutes ago and completely ignored the estimate.
Two words: rate limiting
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If they’re doing the orders by the time they were received, then it’s no different than standing in a long queue for people to order. It would probably be easier to bring back the number ticketing system, but regardless it should not be different than people coming into the store and standing in line. If they’re doing the mobile orders first, then that’s most likely a contractual obligation that these employees have no control of. No offense, but as a whole society we now expect ourselves to receive service instantly and any form of delay is inconvenient and frustrating. I get it, but patience is a virtue
Maybe you’re not doing it like the rest of us?
Same with every Dunkin Donuts around me. You go in to order, say what you want, then wait forever while they fill a dozen mobile orders and try to coordinate delivery pickup
hm where I work generally we just go in order of fist come first served so mobile orders don’t get any special treatment
They dont want to pay market rate for the labour.
We are in structural demographic decline, and corpos in denial about it.
They tnk mass migration will save them…
It’s as bad at Kroger.
There’s one and half aisles that are basically unusable because it’s where they stage the online orders. Then you’ve got the employees pushing these giant trollies around full of baskets for online orders. Ugh.
I’ve never stood in line less than 20-25 minutes in a Publix line. It could be like 5 people and Publix folks have a level of relaxation I strive to achieve daily at work.
Because it’s more profitable.
Drive-throughs are super profitable for fast-food joints. A lot of then actually don’t serve customers not in a car because it affects this model so much.
