Amazon Ends Prime Invitee As Membership Growth Falters
Uber Eats + Best Buy, Australia Post adds eVito vans, speedy car parts & liquor sales
Good news for those of you looking to get Waffle House, an Insignia monitor, dog food and balloons delivered… via an Australian electric van! But bad news if you were hoping to send your delivery to a friend. Do read on to make sense of that jumble…
Today’s edition is brought to you by the Detroit Mobility Mixer — join us on 9/23.
Today:
Amazon Axes Prime Invitee
Uber & DoorDash Double Down on New Verticals
Chart Time | Low Dwell Time Retailers
Electric Delivery Vans Down Under
OPERATIONS | Amazon Ends Prime Invitee Program
On October 1st, Amazon is shutting down Prime Invitee, a feature that let Amazon Prime subscribers send free deliveries to friends outside of their household. Prime Invitee let users assign a limited access Prime account to another Amazon member at a different address, granting the recipient free two-day shipping. The ecommerce giant first launched the perk in 2009, while it officially stopped enrolling new members in 2015. In its stead, Amazon is pushing Amazon Family, which shares Prime features with one extra adult and up to four children living at the primary Prime user’s same address. Given that Amazon has over 180 million Prime subscribers in the U.S. alone, this all adds up to a lot of users getting a small perk snatched away from them.
The Big Picture: Just like when Netflix cracked down on password sharing, the primary motivation here seems to be the need to juice subscriber growth. Amazon’s usual marketing lever, Prime Day, fell flat this year. Despite expanding the sale-abration to a record four day, Amazon only netted 5.4 million new U.S. registrations, a decline of 116,000 from the year prior. Bezos & Co do seem to be adding in a few new carrots to complement that stick: Prime video users new get expanded access to Peacock Premium Plus.
PARTNER | Join Us for a Free Mixer in Detroit: 9/23
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Top mobility investors from coast-to-coast will be convening alongside Michigan's foremost transportation, delivery, autotech and public-sector leaders for a lively discussion on "The Future of Mobility Investment: Innovative Intersections Between Public & Private."
If you're a founder, funder, builder, OEM, mobility startup, investor, or just a friend of the curb... join us to celebrate Mobility Week with some West Coast flair.
PARTNERSHIPS | UE & DD Add New Vertical Merchants
Uber Eats continues its push into new verticals, as the 3PD adds 800 Best Buy stores to its delivery network. To celebrate the addition of the electronics retailer, Uber Eats is offering $20 off Best Buy orders of $60 or more using the code BESTBUY10. Best Buy looks to be making a larger rejiggering to its delivery ops, tapping FedEx as its primary nationwide parcel carrier. UE is adding new merchants in the UK as well, teaming up with pet retailer Jollyes to offer pet food and toys in as little as 30 minutes. The 100+ location retailer is branding the service “Zoomies,” and is proceeding with a 13 store trial before rolling out across the United Kingdom.
The Big Picture: DoorDash continues to also add non-restaurant merchants, including a new partnership with Party City. While the party supply retailer went bankrupt earlier this year, its new owners Ad Populum are relaunching the brand, which includes 26 separately-owned franchise locations. On the food side of things, DoorDash also has a new partnership with Waffle House; the iconic diner will use DoorDash Drive to power deliveries in its first-party app from 9 PM to 8 AM.
CHART TIME | Car Parts & Booze Merchants Ace Dwell Time
Normally you don’t like to see drinking and driving anywhere near each other… but apparently both auto part and liquor stores have aced the art of delivery fulfillment. A new Gridwise study notes the dwell time and average pickup time of various merchants, and brands like BevMo and Carquest come away as the speedy winners.
EVs | Australia Post Adds Mercedes eVito Vans
Australia Post, the postal service for the land down under, is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. As it continues to shift its fleet towards cleaner vehicles, the post office just introduced 36 Mercedes-Benz eVito electric vans. The vans — already popular with Amazon in Europe — feature 60 kWh batteries and 85 kW motors, capable of 261 km (162 miles) of urban driving. The panel van can store up to 6.6 cubic meters, giving it about half the capacity of its larger and more well-known sibling, the Sprinter van.
The Big Picture: 36 vans might not sound like much, but it’s part of Australia Post’s much larger fleet electrification effort, currently 5,000 vehicles strong. The Aussies are testing EVs of all sizes, including larger trucks like the Mitsubishi Fuso eCanter. On the smaller side, the postal service uses 3,600 OzPods, a three-wheeler custom-made by Stealth Special Vehicles.
A Few Good Links
Avride ramps up AV testing in Dallas. Zomato explores changes to commission structure. Denver’s restaurant scene is imploding. India’s Citymall raises $47M for not quite as instant grocery delivery. Wendy’s expands to Ireland — sounds like a homecoming for the freckly, redheaded mascot… Flexport and Blackrock launch logistics financing. Swiggy and Zomato raise platform fees during India’s festival season. McDonald’s exits NRA over latter’s support of no-tax-on-tips. Wonder launches rebrand, better integrating Grubhub merchants. Erewhon launches in NYC health club, also available via Postmates / Uber Eats. NYC likely to pass Intro 20 — which would require delivery apps to improve worker training and offer safety equipment. Grab invests in WeRide. Instacart’s most popular days for Thanksgiving meal shopping. Grubhub adds marketing tools. Marco’s Pizza CMO jumps to Portillo’s. Restaurants push loyalty programs. McDonald’s profitability falters in California. Job market weakens. Hispanic consumer spending slows. Digital coupon apps soar. Bitcoin ATMs cluster in black / hispanic neighborhoods. U.S. labor force loses 1.2M immigrants. OpenAI and Walmart collab on employee training. Kroger tests the “deli of the future.” Albertsons Media Collective adds screens and influencers. FedEx pushes into Saudi Arabia. JET gets into gifting, grants stock awards. End of de minimis exemption kneecaps USPS parcel traffic, which will surely deepen deficit. ZM Trucks pushes TCO over enviro benefits. iFood talks AI, safety from domestic violence. InDrive works towards becoming international super app, including expansion of grocery delivery to Kazakhstan.
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