Uber Eats Launches Cartken Bots in Japan
Walmart wants Vizio for the ads, Thrive Market + SNAP, eGrocery sales up
Ooh, we’ve got some interesting developments to process today. The TL;DR is: labor shortages in Japan mean more opportunities for robots, Walmart’s buying Vizio to beef up its ad biz, and SNAP going fully online will put margin pressure on mixed-channel retailers. But read on for all the juicy analysis!
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Today:
Cartken’s Robots Big in Japan
Thrive Market Takes SNAP Nationwide
Chart Time | eGrocery Sales Hit $8.5B
Walmart Adds Vizio’s Ads
AUTONOMY | Cartken & Uber Eats Bring Bots to Japan
Watch out Mechagodzilla, a new robot is claiming a piece of Tokyo’s crowded streets; Cartken’s Model C delivery bot is headed to Japan, in partnership with Uber Eats and Mitsubishi Electric. The Model C can hold 27 liters (~7.1 gallons) / 20 kg (44 lbs) of cargo, and travels at 3.3 miles per hour (about walking pace.) The robots travel both autonomously and under the remote piloting of Mitsubishi employees (how very Japanese to keep those employees in-house.)
The Big Picture: Cartken and Uber Eats have a longstanding partnership, with operations in Miami and Fairfax, VA; it’s no surprise they’re taking the model to Japan, given the country’s continued labor shortages. “Robot delivery is considered to be an effective countermeasure to the logistics crisis that will become more serious in the future,” noted Mitsubishi’s Shoji Tanaka. Cartken and Mitsubishi have also collaborated in the past, starting with more limited deployments to areas like malls two years ago, before Japan passed legislation allowing on-road deployment last April. UE holds a dominant position in the Japanese market, taking share form Damae-can, which has been doing local deliveries since the initial dot com bubble.
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POLICY | SNAP Grocery Shopping Goes Fully Online
The USDA recently updated legislation to make SNAP EBT (what you might colloquially refer to as “food stamps”) fully available online; now LA-based Thrive Market is the first nationwide, web-only grocer to opt in to the program. While Thrive usually charges its 1.4 million members a $60/yr subscription fee, that will be waived for SNAP users. The program is active now in California, and will go live in the rest of the contiguous U.S. on Feb 26.
The Big Picture: Over 2023 we saw both Instacart and Uber Eats race to roll out SNAP acceptance to more and more territories, hoping to win over the 42 million Americans that rely on the program. But those launches were built off of existing traditional grocery infrastructure, like the thousands of Krogers that have long dotted the country. This new fully online option not only gives shoppers a heavily discounted option, it should improve nutritional outcomes in food deserts far from a brick and mortar grocer. Thrive’s SNAP payment integration is handled by Forage, which was founded by Uber and Instacart alums specifically to help digital retailers tap into gov benefit dollars.
CHART TIME | Online Grocery Sales Inch Upward
Well, well, well… if it isn’t time for the monthly Brick Meets Click check in on digital grocery sales. The overall market crept up 1.8% to $8.5 billion, with ship to home (meal kits, Amazon.com, etc) showing some improvements after a weak 2023. Traditional supermarkets saw monthly active users dip 5%, while mass discounters like Walmart were up 10%.
ADS | Walmart Sets Sights on Vizio’s Ad Biz
Walmart is purchasing Irvine, CA-based Vizio for $2.3 billion. Clocking in at $11.50 per share, that’s a decent valuation bump for the maker of discount smart TVs, which had been treading water in the $6-7 range for months. The Bentonville Big Boxer has long been Vizio’s largest customer, accounting for at least 20% of its sales (but likely much more) when combined with sister brand Sam’s Club. More recently, Walmart started competing directly against Vizio, when it launched its Onn brand of TVs and sound bars.
The Big Picture: But hold on one sec, this deal isn’t actually about squeezing the price of a 32 inch TV down to $89 (remember when televisions were valuable?) We’ve talked ad nauseam about how many digital retailers and deliverers are glorified advertising platforms, running their shopping channels basically at breakeven so they can make money on high margin ads. That’s what’s happening here, as Walmart wants to glom Vizio’s Platform+ system onto the Walmart Connect ad network, which currently does about $3.4 billion of revenue per year, growing 28% in 2023. (Overall, Walmart just closed out the year with revenue up 5.7% to $173.4 billion, as ecommerce finally broke through $100B in rev.) Vizio brings in over 500 new advertising relationships, plus rich audience data from the 18 million users of its SmartCast TV operating system. Being able to hit shoppers in-store, in-app, and on-screen is a particularly compelling pitch as Walmart works to build the 10th largest ad platform in the country.
A Few Good Links
Uber expands prepaid item pickup to India. Wendy’s net income up 14%. DoorDash says Seattle minimum wage has Dashers waiting 3x as long between orders. Uber sues insurer for failure to cover drivers. Automakers launch Ionna charging network. Feds mull slowing EV mandates (don’t do it!) Drone deliverer Aviant expands to Lillehammer. What’s next for ghost kitchens. Revel POS scores 225 unit deal with Lazeez Shawarma. Atomic Wings plans 20 new units by EOY. Red Lobster sale expected to attract bottom-feeder valuations. Let’s hope Dunkin’s new energy beverage doesn’t kill people like Panera’s did. Wingstop U.S. sales up 21.2%. Little Caesars turns to modular deployments. McD’s launches beauty collab. Oregon union blesses Albertsons & Kroger merger. Hooters chooses ParTech. Electric van maker GreenPower picks Monarch Truck Center for NorCal distro. Chipotle celebrates leap year with free guac. Lucid drops price on Air to a totally reasonable $69,900. Instacart scores Quest Diagnostics’s Pack Health as new integration partner. Grubhub and Greg Hill Foundation giving away $1M to small biz. Focus Brands rebrands as GoTo Foods. DoorDash and USDOT partner on driver road safety.
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