Gopuff & Robinhood Offer Delivery Workers IRAs
Uber offers family budgets, aquatic delivery in London, new woman-owned businesses
We’ve got some big feature updates from Gopuff and Uber today, with new tools to better empower both workers and parents. Meanwhile, London’s got water on the mind, and Yelp has some rather gendered stats on new business formation.
Curbivore 2024 kicks off in four weeks — see you there?
This week’s edition is brought to you by Woolpert.
Today:
Gopuff & Robinhood Unveil IRA Plans
Riverine Delivery Mulled in London
Chart Time | Where The Ladies At?
Uber Offers Teen Budgeting Tools
BENEFITS | Gopuff Offers Workers Robinhood-Powered IRAs
Instant delivery leader Gopuff is partnering with Robinhood to offer its delivery workers access to Robinhood Retirement For Independent Workers. To incentivize saving to these IRA plans, Robinhood will match worker contributions by 2% in the first year, or 3% for those paying $5/mo for Robinhood Gold. Users also get access to financial literacy training from GreenPath Financial Wellness. Robinhood has been on a feature-adding spree as of late, offering new tools around insurance, tax support, live demand maps, earning transparency, location sharing, and order pickup.
The Big Picture: With over 50% of independent workers feeling they don’t have access to effective retirement options, it’s only a matter of time until more apps start adding functionality like this. It should be easy enough from a compensation standpoint, as it looks like Robinhood is the one paying for the entire IRA match; it’s not coming out of Gopuff’s pockets. The industry seems to be looking for the government to push all the players towards a preferred retirement savings mechanism, as that would mean any increased costs would be shared equally across the competitive landscape; DoorDash recently threw its weight behind HB 734, a bill in Virginia that would have the 3PDs pay a 4% match towards portable benefits.
PARTNER | Struggling with Last-Mile Chaos? 61% of Businesses Feel Your Pain
Is your last mile delivering headaches instead of packages? You're not alone. A staggering 61% of delivery businesses struggle with outdated tech, delays, inefficiencies, and skyrocketing costs.
Exploring strategies around making address entry easier and more accurate, providing your drivers with routing and task support, and overall fleet visibility and insights can be small changes with big impact.
If those tips piqued your interest, it's time to have a conversation. Meet with us at Curbivore or contact us today to see how Woolpert Digital Innovations’ location-based strategies fit into your last mile solutions.
SUSTAINABILITY | Will London Embrace Electric Delivery Boats?
London has emerged as a real leader in sustainable urban delivery, as startups like Fin, Zedify and Delivery Mates move cargo via ebikes, electric vans and quadricycles. Together, they’ve taken million of packages out of gas-guzzling trucks, while simultaneously decongesting the city’s windy streets. Now one firm — electric boat maker Hyke — is proposing to go one step further, and move the middle mile (where goods are taken to a distro center before final delivery) to be river-based. A single vessel plying the Thames could replace four trucks (or lorries, if you fancy a Britishism) and serve 70 cargo bikes, all while getting to the heart of London faster than by traditional means.
The Big Picture: As audacious as it may sound, the plan is not without precedent. In Hyke’s homebase of Norway, there are already over 100 electric work boats and ferries chugging along the region’s many waterways. Stateside, New York City has a plan to build a “marine highway” along the Hudson, where cargo vessels would restock delivery bikes at a handful of piers. Local players like DutchX are making progress on bringing that idea to life. If deployed in London, it’s estimated aquatic-based deliveries could take 50 million van miles off the road each year.
CHART TIME | Wome- Owned Businesses Surge
Yelp has new data on the health of the “sheconomy,” highlighting where in the country women are opening the most new businesses, and what kind of products or services they’re most likely to offer. Hotels and travel look to be the fastest growing, while education shows the biggest delta between women and men.
PRODUCT | Uber Adds Budgeting to Teen Accounts
Uber is adding an important new feature for families, allowing parents and guardians to control spending on any linked teen accounts. Adults gain the ability to set spending limits — that’s a fixed budget for the entire month — with individual controls for both rides and meals. Either category can be set to unlimited, a specific dollar limit, or if someone’s violated curfew: no spending allowed.
The Big Picture: This functionality builds off of a slate of family friendly features that Uber released at Go-Get 2023, back in May. Lyft launched its own linked family plans back in 2021, but hasn’t announced any parental budgeting controls. DoorDash allows families to share a DashPass, but still requires each associated account to have a credit card on file. Grubhub does not appear to have any account sharing functionality, other than the age old method of tell your kids your password!
A Few Good Links
DoorDash supports White House Challenge to End Hunger and Built Health Communities. Dine Brands may dual-flag IHOP and Applebee’s. AI ordering startup Presto may disappear. Nikola in talks with new CFO. Port of Long Beach volume up 18% YoY. UPS makes cuts in NJ, OH and CA. Flexport adds discounts for Shopify merchants. Veho partners with Clearjet to add air cargo capacity. Freightos loses $19M. Chipotle doubles down on Cultivate Next tech investments. Kodiak Robotics partners with Martin Brower on autonomous QSR supply chains. Teamsters and Oakland pushing for local regulation of AVs. GAO says data lacking on ridehail assaults. Houston and Wisk plan for eVTOL service. NYC pushes green-collar jobs plan. Figure closes $675M funding round for its human-like robots. Toyota is basically giving away hydrogen cars at this point. Voltera aims to double charging footprint in 2024.
Curbivore 2024 kicks off in four weeks — see you there?
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