Au Revoir! Just Eat Takeaway Leaves France
Wing unveils largest drone, Keeta claims Hong Kong, final mile struggles
Aaaaand we’re back! It looks like JET is pulling out of France, just while Keeta’s expansion into Hong Kong is paying dividends. Meanwhile, Wing is rollout out its biggest delivery drone yet, and couriers are struggling to find the right drop off locations.
P.S. — did anyone else get a “game day” marketing email from Drizly over the weekend? Did someone forget to tell the marketing team they were all getting laid off?
Today:
Just Eat Takeaway Says “Non” to France
On A Wing & A Bigger P(r)ay(er)load
Chart Time | Keeta Muscles into Hong Kong Market
Couriers Struggle To Find Final Foot
3PD | Just Eat Takeaway.com Exiting France
Multinational third party delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway is pulling out of France, where it operates as Just Eat (and previously as Allo Resto.) While France is the E.U.’s second largest economy, Paris is the political bloc’s largest and wealthiest city, meaning JET is ceding a valuable prize to competitors Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Just Eat Takeaway.com’s exit will result in 100 employees being let go.
The Big Picture: Last week JET released a “trading update,” which showed its GTV and orders in Southern Europe, which includes France, plummeting by 17-16%. JET traditionally made use of in-house delivery employees, as opposed to self-employed couriers. Hoping to keep up with its competition in France, it switched to a gig work model in 2022, partnering with last-mile logistics platform Stuart. Recently, the company had been hoping that the passage of a Platform Work Directive across the E.U. would give it a leg up, but that effort to classify more gig workers as employees is now looking stalled out. "I think it's a shame that European governments, especially the ones that have very stringent strong (labour) beliefs, such as France, are opposing this legislation," said CEO Jitse Groen.
AUTONOMY | Wing Unveils New, Bigger Delivery Drone
Alphabet’s delivery drone subsidiary Wing just revealed a new model, enabling it to handle larger orders. The unnamed new bird, built from the company’s “Aircraft Library” kit of parts allows Wing to serve the 30% of its orders that currently require two drones to complete the trip. The company lists “last minute ingredients for dinner — pasta, marinara sauce, parmesan cheese, canned olives and garlic” as an example use. Carrying up to five pounds, the vehicle will be able to fly at up to 65 miles per hour, with a round-trip range of 12 miles.
The Big Picture: Wing has now completed over 350,000 deliveries, across three continents. Expect that number to grow quickly, as the group is working closely with Walmart, which just expanded its drone delivery service to cover 1.8 million households across 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth region. This space is getting particularly competitive in 2024, with DJI just revealing a new delivery model of its own, and DroneUp getting awarded FAA Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) approval.
CHART TIME | Keeta Heats Up Hong Kong Home Delivery Market
After just a half year of operations, ecommerce giant Meituan’s new food delivery subsidiary Keeta has claimed a whopping 38% of the valuable Hong Kong market. The company made in-roads by starting with the city’s densest neighborhoods, and focusing on lower AOV transactions. Now it’s overtaken Deliveroo and is nipping at the heels of Delivery Hero-owned Foodpanda. Once the company adds in online grocery delivery, the option to do pickup, and a premium membership subscription, it could start really cooking!
OPERATIONS | Couriers Report Difficulty Finding Right Locations
The WSJ has a great deep dive on how hard it can be for couriers and delivery workers to find the right home, apartment or mail box for time-sensitive orders. Garden apartments, trailer parks and campuses can prove particularly difficult, given inconsistent layouts and multiple layers of security to breech. In a dense urban environment, a courier may find each building is only a few minute apart, but it then takes 10x as long to actually navigate the inside of a highrise. “Shaving off 10 seconds on each stop makes a difference,” says Itamar Zur, co-founder and CEO of Veho.
The Big Picture: The last mile may be tricky, but the final hundred feet can sometime feel damn near impossible. Logistics giants like UPS and FedEx have developed their own tools that pinpoint exactly where workers need go; Amazon provides its fleet operators with photos of buildings, units and mailrooms. But for 3PDs and couriers, gig workers are often left to their own devices. While startups like Beans.ai aim to offer additional information to speed up drop-offs, contractors are often loathe to shell out a few bucks per month to pay for additional services. Seems like a win-win for the 3PDs to bundle that kind of data into the dispatching app?
A Few Good Links
USPS unveils new electric delivery vehicles. Domino’s pushing carry-out deals. Giant Eagle opens automated MFC. Shippers may cut back on alternative delivery providers. Do restaurant phone orders matter? Amazon may charge for Alexa. CVS rethinks loyalty program. SCAQMD wins right to regulate warehouse-related emissions. Olo broadens rollout of Borderless password-free checkout. Shopify investing $260M in Flexport. San Diego hopes to lure back scooter cos. Macy’s takeover may go hostile. Uber and Lyft drivers celebrate recent settlement in NY; AFL-CIO pushing for similar outcome in other states.
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