Live Crickets on Demand
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Today’s top tech stories: China signaled that its corporate regulatory crackdown will extend through 2025 Hackers stole about $610 million and then gave half of it back Coinbase falsely claimed a stable coin it sold was backed by cash Building a new kind of everything store DoorDash Inc. mastered the business of delivering dinner to Americans’ doorsteps. Now it’s looking for what’s next, and that’s putting it in direct competition with the most feared company in retail, Amazon.com Inc. The upstart has some help from a former Amazonian. Christopher Payne, who was an Amazon vice president at the turn of the century, was recently promoted to oversee DoorDash’s expansion into new verticals. Payne, the president and chief operating officer, said his mandate is simple: “Get customers anything they want delivered to them in minutes.” For Walker Tindall, a DoorDash customer in Dallas, Texas, it was a 40-gallon glass tank and live crickets. She placed the order from Petsmart via DoorDash on behalf of her bearded dragon, Iroh. Though she normally shops on Amazon, Tindall said she couldn’t resist DoorDash’s fast delivery option. “I’m pretty addicted, like every other Zoomer,” said Tindall, 23. The Covid-19 pandemic cemented DoorDash’s status as the dominant meal courier service, with 56% of U.S. sales as of June, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. It also created an opportunity for DoorDash to create a delivery empire. The company has parlayed pandemic-era growth to break into other categories like flowers, home goods, convenience store items and groceries. “DoorDash is angling to be as big as possible,” said Brad Erickson, an analyst at RBC Capital. Investors will get an update on just how big when DoorDash reports quarterly financial results Thursday. In any event, it still has a long way to go to match the giant from Seattle. With a market valuation of more than $60 billion, it would take 27 DoorDashes to equal one Amazon. That’s because Amazon redefined the concept of delivery and forever changed people’s expectations with two-day shipping. Underpinned those innovations is a fine-tuned logistics apparatus that, with over 20 year of experimentation, has made the fulfillment of millions of products a practically seamless operation. One advantage DoorDash has over Amazon, in some cases, is speed. Since its founding in 2013, DoorDash has amassed a fleet of over 2 million couriers who deliver orders in as little as 30 minutes. Last week, DoorDash introduced DoubleDash, which lets customers shop from multiple stores—from the corner bodega to a large supermarket—and group them into a single order. That could create an opening. “Amazon can’t handle the delivery needs of everyone,” said Asad Hussain, an analyst at research firm Pitchbook. An example of how DoorDash enables a new type of e-commerce can be found at Qiao Feng Delicatessen in Brooklyn, New York. The owner, Allen Gao, enrolled his store in DoorDash’s marketplace app in April. He manually entered his entire inventory, including sandwiches and household goods, into the app. DoorDash’s system now surfaces his store’s item in search results alongside neighborhood restaurants, fast-food chains and 7-Elevens. The deli doesn’t even have a website, said Gao. The grocery delivery business is an open competition and a global one. In the U.S., Amazon and DoorDash are up against GoPuff, Instacart Inc. and Walmart Inc. In Europe, there’s Jokr, Getir and Gorillas. Asia has its own crop. The world has yet to see a company control the market in the way Amazon has for online retail or DoorDash for food delivery. But there are a lot of companies hoping to take that crown, including those two. — Jackie Davalos in New York If you read one thing Apple’s next iPhone will have better cameras and a new file format. That combination also likely means greater memory needs, which is a good way for Apple to charge customers more money . Sponsored Content GEP commissioned a survey of over 400 senior business leaders from the world’s leading global enterprises to determine the real costs of supply chain disruptions. The impacts run deeper and wider than what most enterprises had anticipated. Read the full report here >> GEP What else you need to know A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation that would place new rules on app stores. The Open App Markets Act would require Apple and Google to let people install software from outside of their stores and access alternative stores, the Washington Post reported. Mailchimp is exploring a sale that could value the email marketing business at more than $10 billion . Samsung introduced a foldable phone that, at $999, is drastically cheaper than its predecessors . Lionel Messi gave an interview to a Twitch streamer. Messi, one of soccer’s all-time greats, spoke with a Spanish influencer shortly after leaving FC Barcelona for Paris Saint Germain. It was a coup for the Amazon-owned website popular with gamers . Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? Sign up for Power On to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. Sign up for Game On to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like Fully Charged? | Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com , where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, sign up here to get it in your inbox. Unsubscribe Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg.com 731 Lexington Avenue, Contact Us New York, NY 10022.