DoorDash Bans Alcohol Deliveries at MA Campuses
DoorDash Bans Alcohol Deliveries at MA Campuses
Gatik + Tyson, Instacart IPO price, Walmart Fulfillment Services
The worst part of the weekend is having to go two full days without exciting Modern Delivery updates! Well strap in, we’ve got some big news from DoorDash, Gatik, Instacart, Walmart and more…
Today:
DoorDash Bans Alcohol Delivery Sales at MA Campuses
Gatik Scores Tyson Food Partnership
Chart Time | Instacart Sets IPO Price
Walmart Makes Fulfillment Moves for Third Party Sellers
3PD | DoorDash Bans MA Campus Alcohol Deliveries
Sorry frat boys, the party’s over! DoorDash is tightening up its alcohol delivery policies in Massachusetts, including banning delivery in “high risk areas,” which in layman’s speak means college campuses. The company also touts that it’s improved its ID scanning system, and is requiring Dashers that handle booze deliveries to complete an alcohol compliance module. And if a Dasher suspects the customer is underage, it’s easy to return the order while still getting paid for the trip.
The Big Picture: Massachusetts has the most colleges per capita of any state, ranging from the studious environs of Harvard and MIT, to the more carefree campuses like Berklee College of Music and U Mass. Amherst. As such, banning alcohol deliveries on campus definitely cuts out a huge customer base (MA has just under 500k college students, let’s guess that over 250k are of age; we’ll let you figure out how many are on or off campus…) But with strict penalties for delivering to minors, evidently DoorDash found this to be a worthy tradeoff. Here’s a question though… how well does the system actually work? The Modern Delivery team fired up the ol’ DD app, and put our address as 700 Commonwealth Ave — the second largest non-military dorm in the country — and we had no problem setting up an alcohol delivery order. UPDATE 9/12: DoorDash shares that upon completing the order, users will receive a notification that alcohol cannot be delivered.
AUTONOMY | Gatik Starts AV Deliveries for Tyson Foods
Poultry impresario Tyson Food is automating its middle mile deliveries, as it teams up with Gatik in the Northwest Arkansas region. The companies will be deploying 26-foot, refrigerated box trucks that carry ~15,000 lbs, freeing up Tyson’s traditional 53-footers for more lucrative long-haul routes. Tyson reports at scale the pilot could save it $900k per year.
The Big Picture: Gatik has made smart work of doubling down on routes its system already knows well. This NW Arkansas terrain is already closely-studied for its partnership with Walmart. In other regions like Dallas-Fort Worth the company has also struck multiple partnerships, helping it spread some fixed costs. It’s also worth noting how much the two companies mention safety: "We have never been in an incident or an accident while … the system was in autonomous mode across any of our sites — Arkansas, Texas or Ontario," said Gatik CEO Gautam Narang. With AV trucking heating back up, look for that to be a continued talking point as companies look to differentiate themselves from the robo-ridehailing wars in San Francisco.
CHART TIME | Is $9.3B The Right Price for Instacart?
As Instacart’s IPO barrels forward, the company has now hit a key inflection point: it’s set a target share price: $26 to $28. This gives the company a valuation of $7.2 to $7.8 billion, which jumps to $8.6 to $9.3 billion once you factor in dilution for restricted stock, options and warrants. That’s a lot of money, indeed — about the same as Kosovo’s entire GDP — but it’s still a big markdown from the $39 billion the company was valued at during its funding round two years ago. In case that wasn’t obvious, we’ve charted it above.
ECOMMERCE | Walmart Scales Fulfillment Services
You hear that, Amazon? Walmart’s coming for ya! The Bentonville big boxer is scaling up its Fulfillment Services for third party sellers to include include big and bulky items, as well as multi-box shipments; it’s also debuting digital brand shops and shelves on the company’s website. And in a move aimed directly at The Everything Store, Walmart will not charge sellers peak season storage fees if they inbound by the first of October.
The Big Picture: As Amazon cranks up fees on the merchants that power much of its inventory, Walmart is making moves to steal them over to its own platform. The company touts that sellers average a 50% boost to GMV when selling items through Walmart Fulfillment Services. The company also announced its expanding Walmart Marketplace to Chile (which vies with China, Canada and South Africa for Walmart’s the country with Walmart’s fourth largest footprint.) The retailer also rolled out some new order and cash flow management tools for SMB customers, hoping to further stimulate demand for its marketplace.
PARTNER | HNGRY Summit Heads to LA on 10/20
Food tech media platform HNGRY is hosting an all-day summit in LA on October 20th to explore the blurring lines of restaurants, retail, CPG, and supply chain as it relates to the future of food. Expect 1:1 fireside chats with leaders behind brands like Eater, Resy, Blackbird, Goop Kitchen, Anytime Spritz, and Everytable alongside collaborative breakout sessions, and of course, food and drink! Register with code SUMMIT20 for 20% off of early bird tickets.
A Few Good Links
SUN Mobility’s battery swapping tech to power 15,000 delivery ebikes for Swiggy. 10 fastest growing chain restaurants. Dollar General taking $95M hit as it clears inventory. Grubhub and Starship launch bots at Sam Houston State Univ. Tesla and McDonald’s China launch Cybertruck McFlurry. Sizzler plans tech-enabled, retro-branded comeback. Sprouts hires CTO. Are Uber Eats drivers pretending to deliver with bikes but really using unregistered cars? Inside the meltdown at Boston Market. Walmart lowers entry level wages. NYC courier e-bike trade in program off to slow start.
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