What further differentiates FreshDirect from its many competitors is that it also concentrates on the assemble-to-order for its meals and entire orders, comparable in execution of this strategy to Dell Computer and their production of customized PCs (Laseter, Berg, Turner, 2003). The company's three most dominant competitors include D'Agostino Supermarkets, Dean & DeLuca, and Peapod, LLC. The first two competitors began with traditional storefront supermarkets and gradually expanded into a multichannel selling model. Peapod LLC began also as an Internet-only based online retailer and today has scaled to support over 20 different metro, suburban and local community locations, charging $9.95 delivery fees for basic orders. None of these three competitors have relied on the Internet to create significant gains in procurement, supply chain optimization and supplier collaboration...

These are the attributes however of FreshDirect, as they look to the Internet not as their only channel or as the catalyst of disintermediation of food retailing, but rather as a platform to significantly improve process performance. In this strategy of relying on process improvement and continual increases in accuracy, reliability and speed of transactions, FreshDirect has a significant competitive advantage. The potential for future growth within the given geographic regions the company concentrates on will continue to be profitable based on this approach.