Hey Snackers,
The best products to come out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) so far: a digital scroll, a rollable phone, and a wine-pouring robot.
Stocks dipped as investors worried about the likelihood of more Big Tech regulation following the US Capitol riots. Meanwhile, House Democrats introduced an impeachment article against President Trump, eight days before he's set to leave office.
Unslip
The anti-return policy: Walmart and Amazon don't want your stuff back
Returning your returns... So meta. The new approach to online returns: don't do them. From Amazon, to Walmart, and Chewy, companies are starting to say “keep it,” according to the WSJ. They’ll refund you for that tight-fitting beanie — but they don't want it back. Why so nice?
- It's a price thing. Some returns are more expensive to process and ship than the products actually cost — especially cheap or heavy items. Companies use AI to do the math.
- Returns can cost companies $10 to $20, excluding transportation. So it makes more economic sense to just refund you for that $7 PopSocket (iPhone was allergic).
Do "one-size-fits-all" fuzzy socks count?... The number of ecommerce returns in 2020 jumped 70% from 2019. More than half of that was driven by soaring online sales. A fourth was because you didn’t want to return online orders at physical stores. And a smaller part was because... clothes didn't fit after gaining the Quarantine 15.
- For customers, this is clearly a win. Your pile of "return" items has been growing for years since the psychological hassle is just too much to bear.
- For companies, making customers happy and losing less money are wins. But it could be a slippery slope ("Amazon return fraud" is apparently a dark-web career).
Score one for brick-and-mortar... Ecommerce takes all the spotlight nowadays, but we often overlook the big, hidden costs of online shopping: returns. According to Shopify, online purchases are returned at least twice as much as physical purchases. According to others, they're returned three to four times as frequently. That's wasted time, effort, and money for companies. As return volumes hit record highs, that model just doesn't make sense for some businesses.
Streamy
Quibi gets a new lease on life (and Roku gets a great, ad-tastic deal)
Gone in six Quibis (and back in three)... In October, Quibi announced it was shutting down just six months after launching. The short video streamer had raised a ginormous $1.75B to bring star-studded original shows to your phone (Liam Hemsworth, Idris Elba, Chrissy Teigen — all Quibi'd). The hype was real, but the cruel reality was realer (it flopped). While Quibi is dead, its content is being reincarnated... in the body of a streaming dongle.
If content is king... then Roku just got a royal deal. The popular streaming device company has acquired the rights to 75+ Quibi shows, to be streamed exclusively on its free, ad-supported "Roku Channel." Sure, Quibi had some questionable content (see: show about a woman with a golden arm, show about a sex doll come to life). But it splurged on HBO-level production quality and A-list stars, so Roku's getting a sweet deal:
- $1.1B: How much Quibi spent on content in the first year, topping out at $100K per minute for the priciest shows.
- Less than $100M: How much Roku reportedly paid for all that Quibi content.
- For reference: Netflix spent more than $17B on original content in 2020 alone (you could probably tell from the Bridgerton set design).
Roku is thriving on both sides of streaming... As "the People's Streaming Device" (aka: cheaper alternative to Apple TV), Roku is the leader in streaming hardware, covering over 50M households. That's likely why its stock has nearly 3X'd in value over the past six pandemic months. But more than 70% of its sales actually come from ad sales and subscriptions — and those are growing faster than hardware sales. By beefing up content on The Roku Channel — which has 40K+ movies and shows — Roku can make more ad money and sharpen its double-edge over streamers like Netflix.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Sleek: Chinese EV-maker Nio unveiled a luxury sedan to compete with Tesla's Model S.
- Boot: Parler, a conservative-friendly “free speech” app, went offline after Amazon booted it off its AWS cloud.
- Granny: IAC’s ANGI Homeservices just bought Umbrella, a company that connects senior citizens with $20/hour “neighbors.”
- Suspend: Marriott and Blue Cross suspend donations to US lawmakers who voted against Biden's certification.
- Clogged: Crocs stock jumps on the CEO's forecast that the ugly shoe company will deliver the "strongest sales in Crocs history" for full-year 2020.
- Crypto: Bitcoin pulled back from its epic rally, falling as low as $30K.
Tuesday
- Earnings expected from Albertsons
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify
ID: 1475186
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