Hey Snackers,
Enjoy your Adult Recess (if you have to ask, you're not doing it right).
The market's 4-day win streak ended Tuesday — just as Apple officially whips out its first credit card.
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Apple's Goldman Sachs credit card is now available for all (iPhone-owning) Americans
"Hover"... That's the non-swipe verb Apple envisions you motioning with your new Apple Card, the digital-native payment method it announced in May last year. Welp, it's finally available to all (in the US), and you apply through the Wallet app on the iPhone. If you're approved, you get:
- Hoverability: Apple Card's natural habitat is Apple Pay, the contactless payment method built into the Apple Wallet app.
- Privacy: The card doesn't even have a number. It's witness protection program approved, and totally encrypted, generating a new digital number with every transaction.
- Rando coolness: When you first get your card, it exists on your phone in a blank-slate white hue. Then it changes color based on what you buy (restaurants = orange).
3 is for me... People ❤️ points. So Apple's giving you 3% cash back when you make Apple purchases or pay for an Uber. If you pay through Apple Pay on your iPhone, you get 2% cash back. But there's also a physical brag-worthy titanium card — Apple only gives 1% cash back when you pay non-digitally. It's subtly incentivizing iPhone-dependency via points.
Apple Card is access to iPhone Nation... CEO Tim Cook wants Apple Card to become a status symbol. He knows that, and is offering up membership to what we're calling "the 3% Club": merchants that will offer Apple Carders 3% cash back. Here's why we expect more companies to ask Apple to join the deal and exclusively accept Apple Card:
- What merchants pay: That cash back you get comes from somewhere — the store pays it.
- What merchants get: The loyalty from iPhone Nation — if you get 3% off every Uber ride, are you really gonna take Lyft?
Target cooks up a new food brand — then says it'll be worth billions
We found the formula... Add alliteration, an ampersand, and two quasi-wellness-sounding phrases together — you've got a food brand desperate for Millennial eaters. Target proudly launched Good & Gather to be its first flagship grocery brand: 650 food items hit shelves next month, with 2,000 more coming next year. It'll democratize the whole organic fridge:
- Snacks: Good & Gather covers the fast-growing food space of bite-sized options with nut bars and organic flax chips.
- Staples: To fit in your everyday routine, it features almond milk and cage-free eggs.
- Meals: With the rise of convenient grab-and-go, it's offering Avocado Toast Salad kits.
Multi-billion dollars by 2020... That's Target's aggressive expectation for Good & Gather's value. The big box store is optimistic because of its own "one-stop-shop" status — 75% of Target customers who just want a non-food thing also end up buying at least one food thing. Now it wants that delightful food item to be a Target brand.
Groceries are how you Amazon-proof yourself... Only 4% of grocery buying in America is done online — and humans need food daily. Amazon's online grocery experiments with Whole Foods (which it owns) and Amazon Fresh haven't thrived. Meanwhile, Walmart gets half its sales from groceries and is America's biggest grocer. Target hopes Good & Gather can help it hit that 50%-of-sales grocery mark.
Tesla solar panels continue big week of news (bad and bad-er)
Every youngest sibling knows the feeling... Tesla sells electric cars, batteries, and "finally" (that's how Tesla puts it) solar panels. Elon acquired his cousins' startup SolarCity in 2016, but it's just 7% of Tesla's sales. Now Tesla will offer up SolarCity's rooftop solar panels to rent for only $50/month since sales have fallen for 3-straight years.
Burn me once, shame on me — Burn me 7 times... shame on Tesla. Walmart sued Tesla on Tuesday (not a typo). The megachain installed SolarCity panels to power some stores. The owner's manual didn't say anything about fires that Walmart claims they caused at 7 locations. Apparently Tesla didn't right the wrong, and now its shares are down 2% on the lawsuit.
Solar panels complete Tesla... Tesla's official mission is to accelerate sustainable energy. Electric cars are only truly clean if the electricity they drink comes from clean sources. Powering a Tesla with coal-powered juice is still dirty driving. Elon wants Tesla drivers to charge up with Tesla battery packs, powered by Tesla rooftop solar panels.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Slippery: Waymo (Google's self-driving division) is heading to Florida to test its skills in actual heavy rain
- Hiring: Uber is opening a major hub in Dallas by the end of this year — and it's hiring 3K people
- Humans: Facebook is hiring a team of actual journalists to edit and curate its new upcoming News feature
- Acquired: IAC (the publicly-traded holding company behind Match) is buying a new platform for $15M — NurseFly connects hospitals with nurses who've got time
- Burned: Juul's e-cigarette momentum is slowing because rival NJOY came out with 99-cent vapes