Uber Bags Great British Groceries
Deliveroo launches Plus Diamond, Zepto raises $665M, AmEx buys Tock
Wow, hard to believe it’s already Friday! Today is seemingly waaaay too packed with big news, be sure to parse through the many links at the bottom section. And before you get to that, we’ve got some interesting developments out of the UK that we think Americans might just be able to learn from…
Today:
Uber Launches “Courier Pick & Pack” in UK
Deliveroo Non Plus Ultra Diamond Omega
Chart Time | Zepto Raises $665M
Tock Jumps from Squarespace to AmEx
3PD | Uber Eats UK Launches Courier Pick & Pack
Uber Eats is shaking up the Great British grocery game, with the launch of courier pick and pack. Instead of requiring supermarket staff to bag up delivery orders, Uber’s gig workers will now be able to handle the job. This unlocks all sorts of new conveniences for both couriers and consumers: active order adjustments, live updates, aisle indexing, SKU verification (via scanning barcodes with the courier’s app,) and tips for optimizing in-store activities. Courier Pick and Pack is rolling out now across the United Kingdom, with a launch across the European continent to follow.
The Big Picture: While this kind of functionality is table stakes for the competitive U.S. grocery space, Uber is actually the first to launch the offering in Europe, after first rolling it out in Australia about a year ago. (And of course in true Aussie fashion, it goes by a different term down there: Pack & Deliver.) Offloading this labor to marketplace couriers will help Uber pick up smaller chains that have been reticent to jump into delivery; that in turn will help Uber keep growing the segment, after seeing its UK grocery customer count nearly double over the past two years. In the UK, Uber goes head to head not only with the likes of Deliveroo and Just Eat, but specialty web grocers like Ocado and the delivery offerings from major markets like Tesco as well. This development also makes it all the harder for Instacart to branch out from its U.S. and Canada markets.
Delivery & Mobility Happy Hour — 7/11 in Culver City
It’s officially summer, so that means it’s the start of happy hour season! Join your friends at Modern Delivery and Curbivore for a very casual rooftop happy hour on Thursday, July 11th in Downtown Culver City.
3PD | Deliveroo Intros Invite-Only “Plus Diamond” Subscription Tier
Hey big spender! 🎶 Deliveroo has a new option just for you — the London-based 3PD is rolling out a new super premium subscription: Deliveroo Plus Diamond. Not just anyone can opt in, you’ve got to earn it; a spox tells us “To qualify for an invitation to our exclusive service, users need to be among our most frequent and loyal customers.” The £19.99 ($25.28) per month upgrade gets users free priority delivery, members-only experiences, invite-only events, access to exclusive restaurants and shops like Hedonism Wines and Izakaya at Dreams, a credit-based refund if an orders is more than 10 minutes late, and dedicated customer care. Plus Diamond is now available in the UK, but not Ireland or other markets. Deliveroo is also updating its far more humble £7.99/mo Plus Gold tier, to include a 10% credit back on orders of £30, £5 back on late orders, and changes to minimum spending requirements.
The Big Picture: This unique product is part of Deliveroo’s push to become a “Plus-first” business, where the majority of its orders come from customers with a Plus subscription of some sort. Deliveroo’s been working on its subscription game, which includes a lowly £3.49/month Silver tier, for seven years now, and hopes to hit that Plus-first benchmark by 2026. While Q1 saw Deliveroo hit 7.2 million average month active consumers an average of 3.4 orders per month, the company unfortunately does not break out how many of those users were Plus subs.
CHART TIME | Zepto Hits $3.6 Billion Valuation
Indian super fast delivery juggernaut Zepto just closed on $665 million in Series F financing, valuing the Mumbai-based company at $3.6 billion. It’s been a rapid ascent for Zepto, which aims to have 700 dark stores by next March, has grown revenue 140% YoY and is nearing $1B+ in GMV. While quick commerce has withered in most of the world, the intense density of Indian cities suits the model well; Zepto claims 75% of its locations are EBITDA positive, and new locations reach profitability in half a year. The company aims to IPO in 2025.
M&A | AmEx Puts $400M on Its Card to Gobble Up Tock
Financial services biggie American Express is hungry for the restaurant segment, having just laid down $400 million to buy the reservations, events and delivery platform Tock from Squarespace. AmEx is also shelling out for Rooam, a contactless payment provider that integrates with numerous POSes like Toast, Micros, and Lightspeed. Tock, which services about 7,000 restaurants, wineries and venues, joins Resy, which counted 4,000 resto partners when AmEx bought it in 2019.
The Big Picture: Squarespace bought Tock (also for $400M) back in 2021, in a bid to make its site-building tools more appealing to restaurateurs. With the company now going private, this is an easy way to generate some quick cash for its new owners, while rehoming Tock somewhere that makes sense for both its merchants AND its diners — AmEx after all is the master of offering perks like fine dining rezzies to hungry yuppies. One big question is if AmEx will suck up the operational complexity and merge Tock and Resy together, which would be a boon for consumers tired by the need to hop from site to site to find a nice date night dinner option, and would better challenge Booking Holdings-owned OpenTable’s 55,000 listings.
A Few Good Links
DoorDash adds new anti-fraud tools for merchants, throws in another $1M for disaster recovery. McD’s launching $5 meal deals. Pizza Hut closes Midwestern locations in dispute with franchisee. Can’t blame this one on the minimum wage: Ohio-based Melt Bar & Grilled, not to be confused with SF’s The Melt, files for bankruptcy. DeliverZero partners with multi-brand operator Broadside. (Listen to DeliverZero Founder Lauren Sweeney at Curbivore 2024.) Amazon Fresh expands Indian operations to 130 cities. Sobeys pauses launch of Ocado-powered warehouse in Vancouver. Ruby’s launches new rewards app. Trump proposes wrongheaded plan to make tips tax free. Kroger sees delivery sales up 17% YoY, but net income falls 1.6%. Target launches generative AI powered chatbot for store workers. Truckers want legal pot. Darden sees annual sales up 8.6%. PDQ Chicken picks Grubbrr for kiosks. Subway plans drone delivery stunt for World UFO Day — those look like Flytrex kits to us? Texas Instruments advances EV charging hardware. Wing Zone flies into CO. Must be a heat wave: Whataburger giving out free iced coffee, Panera adds four new cold bevs (hopefully non-fatal this time.) Just Eat Takeaway.com expands free Amazon Prime promo to Germany, Austria and Spain. NYC already suffering infrastructure failures from congestion pricing switcheroo. Centre for London wants to move ULEZ to a pay per mile scheme. C-stores boom on d-apps. Car dealerships suffer as CDK outage lingers. Tesla’s Mexico factory stalled. OMF welcomes new Steering Group co-chairs at next virtual meeting. Stitch Fix adds shippers. Gopuff teams up with failed crypto spox Tom Brady.
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