Tag: Instacart

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 1st October 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 1st October 2022

What I wrote last week

The push to grow the complex Bundles by Disney

Decoupling – A great tool to analyze business strategies and disruption

Business

Instacart Offers Grocers the Future of Grocery in a Bundle. Instacart becomes a much more interesting company with these innovations. Pushing a heavy cart around and waiting in line forever just to check out is not a great customer experience. The Caper Cart sounds like a game changer for grocers, shoppers and Instacart. These products are so different economically than delivery services. This helps diversifying Instagram, adding revenue stream and reducing risks.

Why India’s small sellers still don’t trust Amazon. The relationship between Amazon and Indian sellers is so strained that I struggle to see how the company can succeed in this important market.

What Chinese media reveals about Shein’s secretive operations. “There are two main kinds of suppliers: “free on board,” those that make simple designs they haven’t devised themselves, and “original design manufacturers,” those that do both. They all feed into Shein’s sprawling manufacturing execution system (MES). The designer-suppliers will find pictures online and send a selection to Shein’s internal buyers for consideration; the buyer and their manager settle on a final pool. Once samples have been received, there might be two, or even three, rounds of changes before manufacturing can commence. (The entire time, everything needs to be recorded in the MES — materials, pricing, even chat logs — something suppliers balk at, because, if the deal falls through, all the information sits in Shein’s records, and there’s nothing to stop them from producing it elsewhere.). hein is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to evaluating its suppliers, according to analysis by Zhongtai Securities. A scoring system sorts the wheat from the chaff. Timeliness of procurement and delivery, stocking and delivery, rate of defects, and the success rate of new products make up 40% of a supplier’s score. The remaining 60% is based on order volume. They are then tiered into five levels, and the bottom 30% of the lowest tier are culled.”

The Ascendancy of Ahold Delhaize. “Ahold Delhaize USA has been strengthening its position as it looks to take its hyper-local value proposition national. After blockbuster revenue years in 2020 and 2021, Ahold Delhaize has demonstrated that it can keep growing by focusing on omnichannel innovation, prioritizing value and expanding its assortment of high-quality, low-cost private-brand products. “

($) The Unstoppable Rise of Aldi in Britain Shows No Sign of Slowing. “A recent visit to Purley, south London, found the parking lot outside Aldi boasting BMWs, Land Rovers and Porsches and shoppers choosing Aldi over nearby branches of Lidl and Sainsbury, as well as the upmarket Waitrose 10 minutes away. An extra 1.5 million customers have visited Aldi over the past three months. When sales were up by at most the low single digits at most UK supermarkets, they rose 19% at Aldi and 20.9% at Lidl. Part of the strategy is economy of scale. Aldi has about 2,000 key products in store, compared with as many as 30,000 in some large rival supermarkets. By stocking just one ketchup, for example, Aldi has a tight supply chain and can avoid pricing rows like Tesco’s recent spats with Kraft Heinz Co. and Mars Inc.“

How Bryan Lourd became one of the most powerful people in the history of Hollywood. A phenomenal story. Bryan Lourd worked his way from a mail room to being one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

How Arm conquered the chip market without making a single chip, with CEO Rene Haas. I am not a fan of Nilay or The Verge’s new website look, but this is a great interview on one of the most important players in the chip industry. Especially when Arm is not really a household consumer name

Amazon dominates the $113 billion smart home market — here’s how it uses the data it collects. Amazon has a major trust issue because no matter what the company says, I don’t think consumers trust Amazon to do the right things with their data.

Other stuff I find interesting

Why the Rush to Mine Lithium Could Dry Up the High Andes. “With the world’s car fleets transitioning to electric propulsion, Argentina, with reserves of up to 60 million metric tons, according to government estimates, is well-positioned to profit from the lithium rush. Lax regulation and low taxes make its part of the Lithium Triangle — in the northwestern provinces of Jujuy, Salta, and Catamarca — “especially attractive for foreign investors,” according to Lucas Gonzalez of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), a government agency in Buenos Aires. The country could soon become the world’s second-largest lithium producer, after Australia, and the largest producer from evaporative mining. But every ton of lithium carbonate extracted from underground using this cheap, low-tech method typically dissipates into the air about half a million gallons of water that is vital to the arid high Andes. The extraction lowers water tables, and because freshwater often sits on top of salty water, this has the potential to dry up the lakes, wetlands, springs, and rivers that flourish where the underground water reaches the surface.“

Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go, Stanford study finds. “The move to electric vehicles will result in large costs for generating, transmitting, and storing more power. Shifting current EV charging from home to work and night to day could cut costs and help the grid“

New ways to make more sustainable choices. I’d love to try out these new features, especially the updates on recipes

iPhone 14 Pro Review: No phone is an island. I like Jason’s review of iPhone 14 Pro. A few friends of mine belittled Apple for the lack of innovation. I mean, that criticism is fair when it comes to the lower lineup iPhone 14, but the Pro version is much further ahead with a lot of cool features and innovation. It’s also great financially for Apple, to sell more expensive and higher margin phones, especially when there is shortage of components.

How Apple Pay works under the hood? An example of how complex payments are under the hood and how far technology has come to enable such complexity in mere seconds

Stats

Biden’s plan to cancel student loans will cost taxpayers $400 billion, among the most expensive initiatives his administration puts forward

6000 children died on EU roads in ten years

Amazon commits to hiring 5,000 refugees by the end of 2024. A big YES to this!

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 27th August 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 27th August 2022

What I wrote last week

Do as I do

Should you stay at a job for more than 2 years, no matter what?

Business

($) Amazon Adds Revenue Streams as Holiday Season Approaches. I wrote a bit about Amazon’s influence on US-based merchants. Let’s say if these merchants manage to sell 10,000 items per minute on Amazon, the increase in fees will result in an extra $5 million per day for Amazon or approximately around $375 million for the quarter. It’s not insignificant, even for a firm that big. I am curious to see the reaction from sellers. On one hand, nobody likes to see costs rise. On the other hand, can these sellers afford to leave Amazon?

How Amazon’s DSP program has created $26 billion in revenue for owners. Amazon has more than 3,000 delivery partners around the world. It may not sound like a lot, but I don’t imagine it’s easy to figure out the kinks of running a complex delivery system involving the internal operation and that of external partners. VRIO is about finding and cultivating Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Organized capabilities or resources. This can be Amazon’s one of many such capabilities.

($) Instacart Revenue Growth Accelerates Ahead of Planned IPO. Now is not a great IPO environment for Instacart. Growth yet unprofitable companies have seen their stocks plummet in the past 10 months. It’s very likely that Instacart will be another name in that group. A quick comparison of the quarter ending 30th June 2022 between DoorDash’s publicly reported numbers and Instacart’s numbers reported in this piece – Booking volume: $13 billion for DoorDash vs $7.1 billion for Instacart; Revenue: $1.6 billion for DoorDash vs $621 million for Instacart.

Consumers Are 19% More Likely to Complete a Purchase with Venmo Over Traditional Payment Methods. Venmo is incredibly popular among end users, especially the younger crowds. To merchants, Venmo can be a value add as well. “In another study of more than 300 thousand U.S. consumers and an analysis of more than 3.4 million transactions,1 we found that Venmo users shop over 2 times more frequently than the average shopper and are 19% more likely to make repeat purchases. ” How PayPal monetizes Venmo will play a crucial role in the company’s future.

Secret ‘Batgirl’ Screenings Hit the Warner Bros Lot. Putting away content that took hours and millions of dollars to create just for tax write-down purposes seems a bit extreme.

Amazon bought Whole Foods five years ago for $13.7 billion. Here’s what’s changed at the high-end grocer. One frustrating aspect of following Amazon is that the company doesn’t break out Whole Foods’ financials. It’s almost impossible to gauge the success of this expensive acquisition. Nonetheless, it’s good to read through the operational changes since then.

Microsoft employees love Figma, and it’s testing the company’s cozy relationship with Adobe. Usually, an upcoming challenger is more popular among small companies while the incumbents are favored by big corporations. In the case of Figma, it’s widely popular at a giant shop like Microsoft. It’s good for them, but a warning for Adobe

WhatsApp grocery shopping is already huge in Brazil. One startup wants to take it over. An intriguing concept to use Whatsapp groups for e-Commerce. Trela manages multiple Whatsapp groups, posts weekly deals in the groups so that users can place orders as well as manages orders and deliveries. Merchants save time. Users get informed of the deals and can buy goods conveniently. What concerns me are the management of groups and scalability. First, Whatsapp groups are limited to 256 users. A medium-sized city will require like more than 100 groups. What about a big city then? How does Trela manage the groups, the communication and the orders? Second, people move from one city to another. How does Trela manage the changes? What if somebody leaves the old group but can’t find a spot in any new group?

Other stuff I find interesting

Deep Time Sickness. An interesting long read on Mexico, its history of earthquakes and the consequences.

Fleeing Putin, Russian tech workers find a home in Armenia. Reading this article, I cannot help but feel that Russia is living off only its natural resources and former glory. The brain drain will deplete the country of valuable human capital and innovation; something that is not easily reversed.

France is now offering a €4,000 e-bike subsidy to people who trade in their car. The initiative sounds great on paper: stimulate exercise, encourage folks to ditch cars for e-bikes. The 2nd-order effect will be more space for cities and outdoor activities for everybody. I am sure there will be scientific research into how much this initiative benefits the country and cities and I really look forward to reading such research.

The utterly delightful site dedicated to classifying plastic bread tags. Such a quirky hobby

For Japanese Uber delivery drivers, gig work is working. “The word “freedom” crops up when talking to Tokyo’s delivery drivers. Their full-time employment alternative, after all, is likely an all-consuming office job, involving long, draining hours and a demanding work culture; part-time at a bar or convenience store, they’d face fixed shifts and constant supervision. While the gig worker industry has come under fire around the world for years of shrinking wages and poor conditions, Japan’s experience, so far, is different; in stark contrast to global lawsuits, protests, and strike action, Japan’s workers, by and large, appear content with the rare flexibility their jobs provide. A recent Japanese study, the first of its kind, surveyed roughly 14,000 delivery drivers from major companies across the country. While most of the workers were new entrants — around 60% have been working less than a year, and the vast majority worked 40 hours or less — 63% said they were “satisfied” with their work; 82% reported that they would like to stay in their jobs “for a while” or “forever.”

Stats

35% of Venmo customers are between 18 and 29 years old, versus 23% across the US

‘House of the Dragon’ draws nearly 10 million viewers

Bank of America Clients’ 1 Billion Digital Logins in July 2022

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 9th April 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 9th April 2022

Business

From Belonging to Burnout, Five Years at Airbnb. An interesting story from a former employee at Airbnb on the culture and how full-time staff and contractors are treated differently.

Instacart Faces Turbulence After Pandemic Boom in Grocery Delivery. Covid-19 might be a great business boost initially, but for some companies, the pandemic may expose their flimsiness and fragility. Fast is shutting down after raising millions of dollars and riding the wave of Covid. Instacart is another firm whose future looks bleak. Merger talks went fruitless. IPO plan was put on hold. Valuation plummeted. The market that Instacart is in is tough, not only because of the competition, but also because of the unit economics. The $24 billion valuation as of now may likely be looked back as a fond memory in a few months’ time.

Amazon to Spend Billions on Space Launches as SpaceX Ramps Up Satellite-Internet Service. Amazon is authorized to launch more than 3,200 satellites into orbit by 2026, but it must have at least half to be operational by then. The thing is that it hasn’t sent anything up yet.

Banks Weigh Using Zelle to Challenge Visa, Mastercard. Some banks are in favor of curing the fraud issue first while others want to expand the current scope of Zelle beyond P2P payments. I am firmly in the first camp. Fraud is rampant on Zelle and a real serious threat to the service. Why enlarging the scope when such a threat hasn’t been properly addressed?

Octahedron Capital compiles quarterly reports of trends and interesting observations. Here is the latest report.

Other stuff I found interesting

Earth is a desert planet compared to these ocean worlds in the solar system. “Our home planet is a desert compared to some places the solar system, both in terms of its total water volume and the amount of liquid on Earth relative to its size. Consider Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Europa, which is smaller than Earth’s moon. Scientists recently used 20-year-old Voyager data to find even more evidence that Europa has twice as much water as our planet. Even tiny Pluto may have an ocean nearly as large as Earth’s.”

Deep Roots. “When you realize you can’t connect one dot without a million other dots entering the picture, you realize how impractical it is to predict what the world will look like in the future. The craziest events – good and bad – happened because little events, each of which was easy to ignore, compounded. Innovation in particular is hard to envision if you think of it happening all at once. When you think of it as tiny increments, where current innovations have roots planted decades ago, it’s more believable – and the range of possible outcomes of what we might be achievable explodes.”

Shanghai’s stunning fall from grace. I am very glad my country didn’t follow what is going on in Shanghai. Am I nervous that we live with Covid nowadays? Yes. But what is happening in Shanghai is just awful. Folks are forced to shelter at home and take rations from the government for an extended period of time. Yes, we had stay-at-home orders in the US but we still could go out and buy groceries. The draconian measures from the government just doesn’t seem to make sense. I get it. They do not want to lose face and admit mistakes, but it’s just horrible to sacrifice others’ lives just for that

Stats

Credit card late fees in the US hit $14 billion in 2019

March Madness Final drew 18.1 million viewers

US teens spend 30% of their daily video consumption on Netflix and YouTube each

Advertising employment gained 3,200 jobs in March 2022

On average, US households spend $148 on groceries in 2022, up from $142 in 2021, due to inflation

16.6% of all US retail sales in 2021 were returned by consumers. The rate of returns of online sales was 20.8%

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 29th May 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 29th May 2021

What I wrote last week

My review of Amazon Unbound

Business

A long post that outlines a bull thesis on Peloton

An excellent review of the new Apple store in Rome. Apple’s retail stores are great valuable assets. They build up the brand image of the company and function as hubs where customers can try out products, receive services and just really connect with the brand.

Instacart kicks off Priority Delivery. This new move by Instacart to deliver items in 30 minutes shows how cut-throat this market is. Competitors such as Instacart, Uber Eats or DoorDash strive to cut the delivery time to gain customers and market share. What remains to be seen is how it would affect Instacart’s bottom line. I don’t think that they are profitable yet. So, we’ll see when they release their S-1.

DoorDash and Uber Eats Are Hot. They’re Still Not Making Money. A pretty telling piece on delivery services

Amazon Briefing: A look inside Amazon’s cloud gaming ambitions

What I found interesting

Financial and emotional risks of working for a startup. Somebody took the time to write about the potential downsides of working at a startup. There are a lot of things to love about startup life and I am pleased to see people talk about it. But it’s also important to shed light on the risks as well

Google now lets you password-protect the page that shows all your searches. Privacy and security are powerful user preferences that are NOT going away any time soon. In fact, they will only get stronger. Google should do more and talk more about what they do in this area. I haven’t seen a lot of marketing efforts in talking about their initiatives to protect user data and privacy

How a Japanese Company Cut 80% of the Time Needed to Manually Count Pearls

Payment links from Stripe. This is what innovation should be

No, Millennials Aren’t Poorer Than Previous Generations. What stood out for me is that Millennials have more non-mortgage debts.

Stats that may interest you

As of 5/24/2021, 40%, 43% and 62% of Airbnb bookings for the summer of 2021 in Seattle, LA and NYC respectively were more than 28 days

75% of Target’s digital orders were fulfilled by their stores. 30 million Americans shop at Target every week

2.5% – 3.5% is what Costco reported as inflation in the latest quarter

iMac 2021’s thickness is 11.5mm, 1 mm slimmer than iPhone 2

Overwork Killed More Than 745,000 People In A Year, WHO Study Finds

Business

My thoughts on Walmart Plus

by MQDuong1 Comment on My thoughts on Walmart Plus

On Tuesday, Walmart unveiled its a long anticipated membership program called Walmart+. For $99/year, members can have unlimited free qualified deliveries from stores, fuel discounts at Walmart & Murphy stations as well as shopping tools such as scan & go to avoid long lines. To qualify for free shipping, deliveries must be $35 or more. Walmart said that there were more than 160,000 items available for this program, ranging from groceries, toys, household essentials to technology. Additionally, members can get 5 cents per gallon off at Walmart and Murphy gas stations. The company said that customers would be able to subscribe for this program starting 15th September 2020 with a 15-day trial.

How competitive is it?

Compared to Amazon Prime, Walmart Plus is years behind. First of all, at $119 a year, Amazon Prime includes many more additional benefits such as exclusive discounts, unlimited deliveries of qualified items without minimum purchase requirement, media & entertainment perks, just to name a few. Among the biggest benefits that Prime offers is the ability to get unlimited two-day delivery for low value items. I can’t count how many times I order stuff less than $15 individually. Second, Amazon carries a lot more items for Amazon Prime than Walmart. Third, when it comes to online shopping, it is a much more established name than its Arkansas-based rival. Shoppers trust Amazon and that’s a true competitive advantage.

What works for Walmart Plus in comparison to Amazon Prime, I believe, is that it offers less expensive groceries. My experience with shopping groceries on Prime is frustrating. I was confused about groceries on Amazon itself and then Whole Foods. Plus, they are not as cheap as groceries sold by Walmart. Hence, if customers are geared more towards grocery shopping, I think Walmart Plus can make a play there.

Other grocers or retailers follow almost the same playbook. Deliveries have to meet a certain threshold to be free and if retailers don’t handle delivery themselves, they’ll partner with Instacart. In that case, customers either pay a small fee for each delivery or enroll in a membership with Instacart (in either case, you are expected to tip drivers). Each retailer will appeal to shoppers in a different way. Take Aldi for example. Its unique selling point is inexpensive fresh groceries. Look for cheap grapes and great Greek yogurt? Head to Aldi. The downside is that Aldi carries few SKUs and less flexibility for shoppers. Target offers much more flexibility and choice as it carries more items, but its groceries are significantly more expensive than those at Aldi or Walmart, in my experience. Costco seems to match Walmart on the grocery front. A Costco member (at least $60/year) can have free grocery delivery for orders of $35+. Groceries at Costco are competitive in prices, compared to those sold at Walmart. Other items can have free delivery too, and with no minimum order requirement, but it will take at least two days.

Figure 1 – Delivery options at Costco. Source: Costco

There are other important players in this space such as Instacart and Shipt. Instacart Express or Ship membership is almost identical to Walmart Plus. Both cap membership fees at $99/year and a qualified basket has to be $35 or more. Unlike Walmart, Instacart is more focused, almost exclusively, on grocery delivery. Shipt is similar to Instacart and owned by Target, but also delivers for other brands as well. An advantage that Shipt or Instacart has is their network of partners. Walmart Plus works only for items sold by Walmart. With Shipt or Instacart; however, shoppers can order from different stores that sell different private brands. It offers shoppers more choices and flexibility. This is the list of retailers partnering with Instacart at where I live. I am sure in bigger cities, the list will be much longer

Figure 2 – Retailers that partner with Instacart in Omaha. Source: Instacart

It’s worth pointing out that even though you can order from multiple stores within Instacart, each store has its own check-out and minimum purchase requirement. The value for customers here is that they won’t have to create an account or download multiple apps on their phone. Within Instacart, they can place orders from different apps. What works for Walmart against the likes of Instacart is that Walmart offers non-grocery items for deliveries as well. Walmart Plus also offers fuel discounts, something that isn’t possible with Instacart.

This is how I think about the positioning of a few retailers who either have their own delivery programs such as Walmart or Amazon, or have their delivery powered by Instacart/Shipt

Figure 3 – 2×2 positioning metric

Among the ones I picked to analyze, Costco is the most similar to Walmart in terms of positioning. Their assortments and offering of inexpensive groceries are pretty similar. While Costco membership, the lowest level at $60/year, is cheaper than Walmart Plus, the fuel discounts and in-store shopping tools from Walmart make the comparison interesting. As far as I am concerned, Murphy and Costco stations are pretty similar in gas prices. Throwing in another 5 cent discount can be attractive to shoppers who drive a lot. Plus, in-store shopping perks like Scan & Go and pay with Walmart Pay can offer extra flexibility. Sometimes, we just need one or two quick items that wouldn’t qualify for a free shipping and we don’t mind stopping at a store for a few minutes. These shopping perks can make life a little bit easier for shoppers to get in and out of a store quickly.

What’s next?

It’s both interesting and challenging to look at this space as there are so many ways to slice and dice. For instance, Walmart Plus enables Walmart to keep their faithful customers from joining the likes of Instacart. If somebody tends to shop more at Walmart for groceries, they now have more reasons to stick to the brand. If some people usually shop at Costco, both Costco and Walmart have its appeal and the decision will rest with each shopper. For those who like to shop non-grocery items a lot and prefer the convenience, I don’t think Walmart Plus stands a chance against Prime yet. If some shoppers prefer the flexibility of ordering from multiple stores within one app, Instacart is the way to go.

Walmart Plus has tailwinds behind it. First, various stores across the country will power their delivery and be a huge competitive advantage. Few retailers can rival Walmart in this sense. Second, the ongoing pandemic and the explosion of grocery eCommerce are significant positive trends for Walmart. Moving forward, Walmart will likely continue to add more benefits to its membership program. The most obvious play is to expand the selection, pushing Walmart’s position in Figure 3 to the right. The more items are available for delivery, the more attractive Walmart Plus will be. Another idea is to mirror what Amazon did with Prime by throwing in other perks such as books, music, movies, etc…I suspect Walmart won’t increase Walmart Plus membership fees in the next two years at least. It took Amazon almost ten years to increase Prime’s fees from $79 to $99/year and another four years to $119.

The future isn’t without challenges for Walmart Plus. There is really subscription fatigue among consumers. How many consumers are willing to spend money on entertainment subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus…), Amazon Prime or Instacart or Costco membership and then Walmart Plus. The economic uncertainty may be a factor as well. Folks may try to tighten their budget more and not have enough disposable income for another subscription. Plus, as Walmart moves to make its membership program more attractive, others don’t stand still. Instacart will continuously expand its partnership network. Amazon will definitely work to move more into grocery delivery.

Business

Likely competition for Uber/Lyft in California. Grocery delivery is growing. Apple’s response to Epic’s lawsuit

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Potential competition for Uber/Lyft in California

The two poster children of ride hailing companies in the US, Uber and Lyft, are having a legal fight with the state of California. The outcome of that battle remains to be seen, but if they lose, the companies already threatened to leave the state. Meanwhile, CNBC reported that at least 2-3 ride hailing startups talked about potentially swooping in to replace Uber and Lyft if they depart. One of those startups that I found interesting is Alto. Alto is a ride hailing startup that mainly operates in Dallas and Fort Worth. What differentiates Alto from their two bigger peers is that Alto’s drivers are salaried employees with benefits. Also, drivers don’t have to worry about gas or maintenance costs. Here is what their recruitment page says

Source: Alto

Some critics of AB5, the law that can potentially cause Uber/Lyft to leave California, say that the law is flawed in that it kills the flexible schedule that drivers, classified as contractors, enjoy. That is a valid point. Some do prioritize a flexible schedule over everything else. I have seen myself several drivers who just drive on the weekends to get some more money on this side gig. These drivers likely wouldn’t appreciate entering an employment contract that would likely require them to work more than they want. Clearly, in this case, AB5 likely won’t work.

That; however, doesn’t change the fact that Uber and Lyft’s refusal to classify drivers as employees can put drivers as disadvantage. Some drivers put in a lot of working hours, but do not earn enough after they take into account gas, car maintenance expenses and dead miles (hours when they drive around without any rides). Because they are not employees, they don’t have benefits like paid time off or insurance either.

There are two separate camps in this argument with virtually conflicting interests. Whether AB5 alone is a sufficient fix remains to be seen, but the existence of companies like Alto and its willingness to enter California’s market offer proof that there is an alternative model to what Uber and Lyft stand for.

Online grocery continues to grow amid the pandemic

Since March, Covid-19 has pushed online grocery to new heights that few could have predicted. According to Brickmeetsclick, even though growth has plateaued in June, online grocery sales reached $7.2 billion and an incredible 85 million orders.

Source: Brickmeetsclick

Recent market developments suggest that the trend is likely to continue in the upcoming months. Shipt announced the drop of membership requirements and instead let customers pay $10 for a single order, $9 per delivery for 3 orders and $8 for 5 orders. Additionally, Walmart and Instacart recently partnered to provide same-day delivery in four markets across California and Oklahoma. Last Thursday, DoorDash entered the grocery delivery market with DashPass, a $10/month subscription which allows customers to order and receive groceries in about an hour. Last month, Uber joined the party with their own grocery delivery option through the main Uber and Uber Eats apps. Moreover, FreshDirect unveiled its expansion into New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Grocers and delivery services are working in tandem to facilitate more online grocery spend. Grocers let customers receive orders at their front door, pick up and drive up at stores. Delivery services lower barriers and compete with one another to acquire users. In the near future, this battle will be very fierce and the biggest beneficiary will be the end consumers.

Apple’s legal issues with Epic Games

Apple responded to Epic Games’ lawsuit over the App Store policies. In the response, Apple offered reasons why the court should let Apple continue to ban Epic Games’ apps while the legal battle rumbles on, including:

  • Epic’s alleged harm is not irreparable. Epic’s apps will be reinstated on the App Store if the game maker removes its own payment option, the cause of its violation of the terms of services, and adheres to the guidelines that Epic agreed to from day one.
  • Epic’s alleged harm is its own doing. The game maker first asked Apple for a special treatment by creating an Epic Store inside the App Store. Then, it asked Apple to open up the App Store by allowing more payment options. After the requests were declined, Epic Games decided to circumvent the App Store policies by offering its own payment scheme, suing Apple and launching a coordinated PR attack.
  • Apple does not engage in anti-competition practices and the App Store policies are to make sure that 1/ consumers’ privacy and safety are protected and 2/ Apple gets paid for its investments

The legal document is here and if you’re interested in this kind of stuff, you should have a read.

Personally, I don’t think Epic will win this legal battle. The App Store is Apple’s investment and intellectual property. Hence, Apple is entitled to enforcing the policies on the app marketplace, the same policies that Epic Games has agreed to when it launched its apps on the App Store. Whether Apple is wielding too much power is another matter for discussion, but if you created a marketplace and invests a lot of resources into it, it’s pretty difficult to understand the sentiment that you’re not allowed to benefit from your own investments or to enact and enforce policies that you see fit.

Plus, what happened, based on the emails exchanged between Apple and Epic, seems pretty distasteful and bully-like from the latter. On 6/30/2020, Tim Sweeney wrote to Apple the following, which is part of a longer email. His requests were rejected by Apple on 7/10/2020:

Source: Scribd

On 8/13/2020, Epic wrote to Apple, declaring its intention not to follow the App Store guidelines and to take legal actions if Apple retaliated. Apple subsequently wrote to Epic twice, informing the app maker of its violations and asking it to remedy the situation. Epic Games instead sued Apple for enforcing rules on…Apple’s own app marketplace.

Source: Scribd

Since I am not a lawyer, I’ll leave the argument on legal standings to the court and the lawyers from both sides, but from a common sense perspective, I don’t see a chance for Epic here. Hey app from Basecamp had trouble with Apple before. Instead of raising a legal fuzz, Basecamp raised the issue publicly on Twitter and engaged in discussions with Apple to resolve conflicts, which it did. And Hey didn’t even demand to have its way in the App Store like Epic Games did. That’s the way to do it, not the course of actions and manner that Epic Games pursued here.

This legal battle will leave Epic’s reputation tainted while also not doing Apple’s any favor.

Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 22nd August 2020

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly readings – 22nd August 2020

What I wrote last week

I compared what is happening in Vietnam and New Zealand in the fight against Covid-19 and why it looks very bleak for America

I wrote a bit of analysis on Square, the owner of Cash App

Business

Instacart dominated the grocery delivery in the US

Second Measure on pandemic grocery spending
Source: Second Measure

A startup that promises to deliver groceries in less than 13 minutes in Turkey

An interview with the CEO of New York Times. He grew the subscriber base from the rock bottom of 22,000 in Q2 2013 to 6.5 million today

How Uber Turned a Promising Bikeshare Company Into Literal Garbage

Technology

Ben Evans on App Store and antitrust issues

A deep dive into iPhone 5C plastic cases

John Gruber on TikTok as a security threat

What I find interesting

The Canva Backlink Empire: How SEO, Outreach & Content Led To A $6B Valuation

To all Americans who are told all the nasty and misleading facts about Socialism & Communism whenever social benefits and safety nets are mentioned, please read this from your fellow American, who considers his move to Vietnam the best decision

Confessions of a Xinjiang Camp Teacher

A dazzling civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5,000 years ago. Why was it forgotten?

Weekly readings

Weekly readings 20th April, 2019

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly readings 20th April, 2019

Half of Instacart’s drivers earn less than minimum wage, labor group claims. This is indeed an issue, but I am not sure if there is any wriggle room for Instacart to increase the minimum wage. From what I understand, it’s already a low margin business. Any pay raise for drivers will cut into the margin even further.

America’s Biggest Supermarket Company Struggles with Online Grocery Upheaval. A story on how Kroger has been transforming itself to stay competitive and avoid the ultimate outcome

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! The Exclusive Inside Story Of The New Billionaire Behind Tech’s Hottest IPO. A profile of the CEO of Zoom, an imminent tech IPO this year. Eric Yuan was denied a US visa 8 times before getting one on the 9th try. Let that sink in.

Here’s How TurboTax Just Tricked You Into Paying to File Your Taxes. I used Turbo Tax this year to file my taxes and ended up paying $100 or so for the service. Though the service is advertised as free, there are numerous hidden fees that will end up on the final page of your application if you are not careful. Plus, several weeks ago, companies like Turbo Tax successfully lobbied Congress to stop IRS from building an online portal, which is a terrible decision.

In African Villages, These Phones Become Ultrasound Scanners. An example of how practical technology can positively influence and save life.

If you can. How millennials can get rich slowly. A short yet great read on personal finance.