The "Uber Eats Pass" just leaked
Hey Snackers,
Summer trips. Book 'em. This weekend kicks off a record travel season (257M are expected to hit planes the next three months).
Markets barely budged Wednesday as more big box stores packed up and shipped their quarterly earnings.
A leak just revealed "Uber Eats Pass" (aka unlimited free delivery)
Sauce on the side... forever. Turns out Uber's food delivery app wants a seat at the subscription table — Uber Eats is working on unlimited food delivery for $9.99 a month. “Uber Eats Pass” will waive the typically 15% delivery fee on your evening enchilada ritual, but still require that order minimum. And Uber Eats already cooks up good numbers:
- It makes up 13% of Uber's total revenues (according to the IPO paperwork).
- And while ride-hailing revenue grew 33% for Uber last year, Eats surged 149%.
- Now Uber Eats is the biggest food deliverer on Earth outside of China.
One thing tastes better than this story... It's how it went down. Jane Manchun Wong is a “reverse-engineering specialist”: She looks through code hidden in apps, puts two-and-two together, then tips off TechCrunch with a juicy story. She discovered not-yet-announced images for "free delivery" and the other deets that make up this story.
Subscriptions are all about “guilt” loyalty... Competitors DoorDash and Postmates already have the same monthly commitment passes. But if you're an Uber Eats Pass-er, you'd hate yourself wasting money on delivery fees with other apps. Loyalty leads to habits — And once Uber Eats enables your Monday maki roll routine, Uber could raise prices in the future.
Amazon shareholders vote NO on 12 activist policies
When you're here, you're family... Public companies invite shareholders — all of them — once a year for a shareholder meeting. CEO Jeff Bezos may regret this corporate democracy in action — Fiery investors at Amazon got 12 petitions on the ballot for a vote on Wednesday.
Jeff should've hit up his stunt double... Amazon became a symbol of tough worker conditions, extreme wealth (of Bezos), and a force for gentrification in Seattle. Unshockingly, it attracted some pretty aggressive shareholder proposals. Here are our highlights:
- A resolution to make a company plan to fight climate change.
- A ban on selling facial recognition tech to governments (because they can be used for discrimination or creepily controlling, you know, society).
- A gender pay equity requirement.
- Disclosure from the executives on where they stand politically (Washington Post-owning Bezos has been accused of bias).
Losing votes can make a difference... The resolutions all failed, but there's still symbolic importance to a "no" — the issue gets raised in the news and execs have to talk about it publicly. Pressure like that can lead to future change. Now here's your election night vote coverage:
- 16%: That's Bezos' voting power based on his shares. We're guessing he voted "no" to all 12 proposals.
- 6.2%, 5.2%: The next biggest shareholders are Vanguard and BlackRock, brokerages that hold shares for regular investors. They tend to follow the recommendation of the board. That was "no."
Victoria's Secret owner jumps 14% because of not-Victoria's
Did it hurt... when your revenues fell from heaven? Victoria's Secret's quarterly sales dropped (another) 5%, 35 stores were shut down, and only 1 was opened. But shares of Vicky's owner, L Brands, jumped 14% after the report because it happens to own another brand doing the opposite: Bath & Body Works sales surged 13% and it opened 11 new stores.
Gisele's been meditating on it... Victoria's Secret still pushes push-up bras in the bralette era, creepily dims the lights in its stores, and remains rooted in malls — That's all on the wrong side of Millennial retail. So Team Vicky has done some serious reflecting lately, and made moves to turn things around:
- Bring back bathing suits: The company lost $500M in sales after ending its swimsuit line in 2016. Now they're coming back.
- Turn off the TV: After its annual fashion show suffered its lowest ratings in 20 years, Victoria is "rethinking" the annual event of aggressive lingerie costumes.
To split or not to split?... One L Brands investor is pushing the company to separate struggling Vicky from the successful Bath & Body chain. That move helps a successful brand keep its mojo, while letting the pained one regroup. It's a style we're trend-spotting across the fashion industry:
- Gap is letting its star Old Navy go free this spring.
- Vans-owner VF Brands is spinning off its strained jeans brands Wrangler and Lee's this week.
- And J. Crew now wants to do the same with Madewell.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Surprise: Ford reveals its robot that walks like a human to deliver packages to your door (nothing car-related)
- DTR: Avon spent 133 years as an independent company — Now the beauty brand is about to be sold to Brazil's biggest cosmetics company: Natura
- Ruling: Qualcomm violated anti-monopoly laws, blocking out competitors when selling its chips for smartphones, according to judge
- Unhappy: McDonald's workers are striking and suing the company in the same week. Plus, they're saying some locations are "magnets for crime"
- Unicorning: TransferWise raises $292M to hit a $3.5B valuation — But the startup that transfers $$$ internationally doesn't want to IPO. No interest.
- Retail-pocalypsing: Lowe's and Nordstrom both fell 10% because they're not doing what Target's creatively doing (more on our pod)
Thursday
- Earnings from Best Buy
- The European Union's elections
- Results from India's latest election
Disclosure: An author of this Snacks owns shares in Amazon.