Hey Snackers,
Forget Cyber Monday — the best deals are on your lost luggage. The 2M suitcases that US airlines lose each year are sent to a store in Alabama, where their contents are sold off at a steep discount. The place, Unclaimed Baggage, is a popular tourist destination… just keep an eye on your bags en route.
Stocks ticked down yesterday, but the major indexes were still on track for their best month in over a year. Meanwhile, analysts expected Cyber Monday sales to surpass Black Friday’s record online #s.
Amazon tops UPS and FedEx as the biggest US delivery biz, as the brown-box battle heats up
Check your doorstep… Amazon’s now the US’s No. 1 delivery biz. Last year — for the first time — the one-click-checkout giant delivered more packages to US homes than UPS or FedEx. While the gov’t-backed US Postal Service still holds the top spot for overall delivery volume, Amazon’s #s represent packages it shipped end to end (think: from warehouse to doorstep). The delivery gap between Amazon and its rivals is only getting bigger:
Prime customer: While FedEx severed biz ties with Amazon in 2019, UPS says deliveries for the ecomm juggernaut now make up over a tenth of its revenue.
Priority shipment: By this Thanksgiving, Amazon had delivered 4.8B+ packages in the US this year. It expects to hit nearly 6B by year’s end — a 13% jump from last year.
No box, no label… no problem. Package volumes have dipped as more consumers opt for vacays and concerts over online splurges. Last month, UPS cut its full-year revenue forecast and said it’s unlikely to top last year’s deliveries. While FedEx raised profit expectations thanks to cost cuts, it’s already scaled back revenue forecasts for next year. As Amazon eats up even more market share, FedEx and UPS are focusing on “high-value parcels” and tapping into the $817B retail-returns market.
If you want it done well, do it yourself… A decade ago, Amazon’s competitors doubted its ability to dominate the delivery industry. Amazon proved them wrong by doubling down on its in-house logistics approach, operating scores of warehouses and managing nearly 280K delivery drivers worldwide. By not having to rely solely on services like UPS, Amazon can control the speed of its deliveries, perhaps its biggest strength.
A psychedelic stock with high hopes
Shroom boom: The market for psychedelic-based therapies is predicted to double by 2029 as biopharmaceutical companies develop psilocybin-based (aka shrooms) medical treatments. One company, atai Life Sciences, is redefining how we can prevent and heal mental health disorders with five clinical-stage drug trials in psychedelic therapies.Â
Psyched: Publicly traded on the Nasdaq, atai offers investors an opportunity to capitalize on the emerging psychedelic treatment space before a mainstream breakout.
United Airlines weighs a takeoff in targeted ads as retail media reaches cruising altitude
Flyin’ commercial… Hyper-specific ads could be coming to a reclined seat near you. United Airlines is said to be considering ramping up its advertising biz with a little help from the troves of data it collects on its 148M annual passengers. If it ultimately does roll out targeted ads, it would join a handful of major companies raking in revenue through “retail media,” ads sold based on customer data by a company whose main biz isn’t advertising.
Prepare for marketing: United’s targeted ads could pop up on your seat back (picture: a Disney World commercial en route to Orlando) or appear while you’re booking a flight.
Upright and locked in: The benefit for advertisers would be United’s captive customers at 30K feet. Still, studies have shown that travelers tend to be more receptive to ads they find helpful (like: restaurants near your hotel).
This is your data speaking… United wouldn’t be the first company to scrape customer info for $$. Last year Marriott introduced a network that uses customer data to place personalized ads on hotel-room TVs (Rolex commercial in your Vegas suite?). Uber, which has doubled down on in-app ads, thinks the new biz could hit $1B next year. This year, marketers are forecast to spend $46B on retail media, with the industry expected to surpass TV ad rev by 2028.
Personalization comes at a cost… More than 37% of customers say they hate targeted ads, leaving companies like United with a dilemma: lose out on millions of $$ or alienate millions of customers. But if travelers see personalized ads on every leg of their trip, they may simply get used to them (hate or no).
What else we’re Snackin’
Spree: The US notched a Black Friday online-shopping record of $9.8B, exceeding predictions. The turnaround from last month’s slow retail sales could boost hopes for an economic soft landing.
GameOver: TikTok parent ByteDance is reportedly eliminating hundreds of gaming jobs and pausing work on unreleased games. Amazon recently cut 180 gaming jobs, as companies struggle to break into the sector.
iGlobal: Apple supplier Foxconn, which assembles most iPhones, is investing $1.5B in India (possibly to build factories). Suppliers are spreading their ops beyond geopolitically tense China.
Loss: Researchers said that patients with obesity taking Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug, Mounjaro, were likely to lose more weight than those on Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic. Both drugs are in short supply as companies race to meet demand.
BBB: Dream on Me, which purchased Buybuy Baby from bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond, reopened 11 of the baby-products stores and plans to open 100+ more. The company said parents make bigger registries in stores versus online.
Tuesday
Consumer-confidence report
Earnings expected from CrowdStrike, Hewlett-Packard, Intuit, Pinduoduo, Splunk, and Workday
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Eli Lilly, and Uber
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