Transcript
A (0:00)
While we were on vacation. CHRIS Amazon added perishable foods to its same day delivery offering. According to Reuters, subscribers to Amazon.com's new Prime service can now get strawberries, milk, meats and frozen dinners on the same day that they order them. The new same day delivery service is free for prime members who pay 14.99amonth or $139 annually for orders over $25. Shoppers without a Prime membership can pay a $12.99 fee or regardless of order size to use the new service. And as of last Wednesday, Amazon shoppers In more than 1,000 US cities were able to obtain same day delivery of perishable food items and the company plans to expand the service to 2,300 cities by the end of the year. Chris do you see Amazon Fresh same day delivery as a sizable direct threat to Walmart and Instacart?
B (0:52)
Wow. You know, and I, I'm going to take a little bit of a potentially surprising opinion on this one and I'm curious what you see, what you think too, because we haven't talked about this in adv. I don't really see it as a threat to either one. I don't really see it as a big threat to either one. And I say that for a couple of reasons. First, and I would give credit to my buddy Tom Furphy of Replenium because he pointed out this week in an article for Grocery Dive, he asked the question do consumers really want to combine their fresh orders with everything else they're getting from Amazon? You know, and I think he's right. I got to give him credit for that. I think the jury is still out on that. We actually don't know. And second of all, Walmart plus is still a much better value at $98 per year, as I'm sure you'll attest to being the biggest Walmart plus super fan out there. And the other point is Walmart also still has a long standing reputation as an actual grocer. So I don't see conversion happening, you know, from Walmart either. So now, so then, so then that leaves the Instacart and the Doordash, you know, that whole lot. And so the difference between Walmart, there's a difference here though, because the difference between the Instacart and the DoorDash marketplaces and Amazon is that they're connected to the actual grocers from which consumers actually want to shop. And that already trust Amazon is just, it's just Amazon Grocery doesn't mean anything. It has no connotation for freshness, which is a big hurdle to get over, you know, to make this happen. So you, Amazon starts to build a reputation in groceries, so what? Provide incremental business? Yeah, but I think it's more of a threat to like the Gopuff players of the world than it is to like DoorDash, Instacart and Walmart. I just think there's more competitive moats at play here than people are probably thinking about. Like the other point I make, Dan Borger, Borgo said this on LinkedIn, he's like those trucks you see that Amazon's out delivering with, they're not going to be able to deliver frozen food. They're not equipped for that. So like this is a whole different set of infrastructure too that Amazon may or may not have the muscle to pull off. So I don't, I don't know. That's my take though. And what do you think though? Do you agree with me or disagree? Do you think it's, I'm guessing I kind of disagreeing with me based on the looks you're giving me on the video.