DoorDash, Uber Eats & Instacart Go Big on BFCM
Curbivore's 2-for-1 Cyber Monday tickets
It’s Cyber Monday (but you already knew that) and while this “holiday” was once exclusively the domain of ecommerce giants like Amazon, the 3PDs and local commerce platforms have muscled in more and more, making it equally likely that consumers get their BFCM fix in 30 minutes or less, as opposed to having to wait a whole day or two. In today’s edition, we track all the mania as it spills into the streets…
Today’s edition brought to you by Curbivore’s 2-for-1 Cyber Monday sale.
Today:
3PDs Go Big on Black Friday, Cyber Monday
Taking Care of Returns
Chart Time | BFCM Sales Records
Ciao Bella, Colonel Sanders!
MARKETING | 3PDs Tap Into Cyber Monday Marketing Mania
Most of the big platforms have rolled out Cyber Monday deals, with different partners and parameters for us to study. Uber Eats is pushing users to its Uber One loyalty platform, offering up $25 off orders of $75+ from Best Buy, The Home Depot, DSW and Lowe’s. While DoorDash has some extra goodies for DashPass members, it’s also playing up deals for regular users, including Kroger, Sprouts, Old Navy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta, and Lowe’s. Instacart is making a big push out of groceries and into retail, with deals from Best Buy, Finish Line, JD Sports, Kohl’s, Office Depot OfficeMax, Petco, PetSmart, Staples, The Home Depot, Ulta Beauty, Sephora, Sally Beauty, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Lowe’s (you go, Lowe’s marketing team!)
The Big Picture: Not everyone is making a big, integrated push. As far as we can tell Grubhub has no brand-specific deals, but it is offering a free year of Grubhub+, although its landing page is confusingly vague about how long the free trial lasts. Shipt is in a similar boat, cutting the price of its annual membership in half, while also rolling out new gifting features. Given the free press that DoorDash, Uber and co. got for their deals, it’s pretty wild that Grubhub and Shipt couldn’t be bothered to call up a few retail partners to make similar promos happen. Meanwhile, keep the poor delivery workers in your thoughts, as they stay busy lugging cheap TVs around town in the back of their rides; even DD itself answers the question “Is dashing on Black Friday worth it?” with the pretty honest response of “With proper planning, it can be.”
CURBIVORE | 2-For-1 Tickets — Cyber Monday Special!
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LOGISTICS | What About All Those Returned Items?
Shoppers may be going trigger happy today, but what happens when those items arrive and you realize you didn’t actually need a “New Dog Series Resin Ornaments LED Night Light Artistic Animal Sculptures Creative Home Desktop Decorations, Battery Not Included, Christmas | Halloween” — even if it is just $12.99. But of the billions in sales over the weekend, a whopping 17% (and rising) is expected to be returned, creating not just even more reverse logistics congestion, but piles of write-downs for retailers. Retailers are fighting back: some are adding upcharges for returns and exchanges, while others are shortening the number of days shoppers can wait to initiate a return. And while Amazon is lengthening its return window for some items during the holidays, shoppers will need to be careful as many specific products — perishables, products that may pose potential health and safety risks once sold, products with shipping restrictions, customized products, redeemable products, Amazon Pharmacy products, pet medication products, autos, and those listed as “Final Sale” — have no return period at all.
The Big Picture: Retailers are also looking for other solutions that might be more palatable than retraining consumer expectations. Specialists like ReturnPro have gotten better at sorting usable returns from the junk, earning retailers at least 25 cents on the dollar for items sent back. Happy Returns works with merchants and consumers alike — getting shoppers to bring their returns to in-person drop-off points (a business model so valuable that UPS recently snapped them up for $455M.) And then for the items that are too hard to get back to the original retailer, a new concept bundles these items together into “mystery pallets” that can be bought in bulk. Wirecutter recently purchased a $700, 450-pound, 6-foot tall box stuffed with returns, in turn peering deep into the soul of American consumers.
CHART TIME | Cyber Monday Shopping Hits $14.2 billion
Adobe Analytics predicts today’s sales will hit $14.2 billion, while the four-day period that started on Black Friday will ring in $38 billion in the United States. Across the globe, Salesforce is predicting $52.7 billion in sales, up 6% YoY. Of note: mobile traffic now eclipses desktop, and traffic from AI agents like ChatGPT is growing at a blistering pace.
RESTAURANTS | KFC Opens Flagship in Rome
OK, time for one non-Cyber Monday story, because this one is too silly to resist. Chicken behemoth KFC is making deeper in-roads into Europe, launching a new *flagship store* across from Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain. (OK, they’re 160 meters apart, to be exact.) Parent co. Yum! Brands hopes that putting new stores in tourist-heavy locations will help it double its total store count on the continent in the next five years. In a press release free from the weight of any self-doubt, the company notes that the restaurant “blend[s] Roman heritage” while also being “one of the first in Europe to offer its consumers KWENCH by KFC… specialty drinks” Veni, vidi, vici!
The Big Picture: Joking aside, Yum has turned KFC into the rare old-school restaurant brand that’s thriving in the digital age. Per its recent Q3, KFC’s core operating profits jumped 14%, while both same store sales and unit counts grew. And while many European 3PDs are seeing growth slow on the old continent, the Colonel saw YTD system sales growth (ex f/x) of 7% in Europe and 6% in the U.K. Carpe diem, indeed…
A Few Good Links
Delivery Mates’ COO shares how to make sustainable delivery a viable business. Taiwan and Japan engage in supermarket solidarity amid Chinese encroachment. How marketplace dynamics saved America’s food banks. What happens when a beloved restaurant de-brands? Tutor Intelligence raises $34M for warehouse picking bots. DoorDash Canada welcomes Pet Valu, Miniso and Mastermind Toys. Interview with Grubhub’s VP of Restaurants. Subway revives Sub Club loyalty program, franchisees grumble the deals are too good (great PR!) Solo dining on the rise. Amazon CDL drivers in KY unionize. US removes UK pharma tariffs. FMCSA “likely violated multiple legal requirements” when it stripped 200,000 drivers of operating privileges. German Doner Kebab enters India — gotta love globalism! Papa Murphy’s adds value menu. Chipotle pushes BOGO offers. Deliveroo does xmas tree delivery — hope you tip well! Deliveroo connects to Sainsbury’s loyalty program. Wayve buys Quality Match. Korean delivery giant Coupang suffers mega hack. Shopify struggles with Cyber Monday outage. Costco joins anti-tariff suit. iFood issues updated Brazilian meal voucher guidance. Lyft to match Giving Tuesday donations. Sensor Tower data shows big jump for Best Buy, Walmart apps. Behind the scenes with Finnish drone delivery.
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