Walk in the Sunshine, No Need to Walk for Your Food?

Dan (00:11):
All right, well something interesting came across a couple days ago and I want to get your thoughts on this. Because at first I thought it was an Onion piece, so wonder if you have the same idea, Onion or not? The Senate unanimously passes a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent.

Will (00:28):
I thought it was fake. And then I went onto Twitter, as you do to confirm if things are real or not, and saw that there were senators congratulating everyone for voting for the bill. And I was like, “Oh, look at this! Daylight savings time is going to be gone, finally.”

Dan (00:43):
Is it? Is it finally? I don’t know if it’ll get passed because we’ve gone down this road before. What’s funny about this is it’s the one thing that unites all of America, is twice a year the clock’s changing, uproar in both November and March for sleep or no sleep. And I don’t know. I mean, Deep did a great episode on this a few years ago with the representative talking about this that was hilarious. Never passed, but maybe this year’s different. Maybe this goes into effect November of 2023.

Will (01:15):
Dan, I’m just going to describe it in this way. You can always pick a person who doesn’t have children, who is just kind of blasé about daylight savings time, because they don’t have to go through the experience with their kids being off their schedule and waking up early and ruining their lives. So I understand where you’re coming from, but I do not like having to deal with it at all.

Dan (01:38):
I mean, I love the sun setting post 7:00, 8:00 PM. It is fantastic. Not sure if I’m going to like the sun rising at 8:00 AM. I don’t know.

Will (01:47):
I’m with you, I’m with you. Well, somebody that is rising though is our next story, and that is Getir.

Dan (01:54):
Yeah, Turkish instant delivery startup. Now, we can debate the term “startup” in future conversations. Just raise a series year round, valuing them at 12 billion dollars, putting them at the same level as other instant delivery services like Go Puff, Gorillas, JOKR, where that offer food deliveries. They’d go 20 to 40 minutes, others say less than 10 minutes, especially in New York City.

Dan (02:17):
Will, what’s your thoughts on all these instant delivery startups? Is there a consolidation down the road? Like where do we go from here?

Will (02:24):
Yeah, I think good for them that they got as much money as they did, and this space is doing as well as it is. I can’t imagine a scenario where the consolidation doesn’t happen soon. I know of Go Puff, I’ve heard of Getir a little bit, I haven’t really heard much of Gorillas.

Will (02:41):
But ultimately thinking that there’s only so much micro fulfillment space that you can have to service some of these areas. And at some point it’s going to continue to get more and more costly to acquire a customer, to have the space, to take care of what you need, and keep that service level that you’re ultimately trying to have someone respect. And so from there, in the next year or two, I can’t imagine where it’s not like a Postmates is getting in line with a Seamless or GrubHub or Uber Eats. I think they have to consolidate. What about you, Dan?

Dan (03:14):
Yeah, I agree with you. It also begs a question of how much are you willing to pay for convenience, and what speed is like too fast? Like, do you need deliveries of grocery items in 10 minutes, 20 minutes? In New York City they’re everywhere, you see them zooming by, you see the micro fulfillment centers. And they got great deals during COVID for space. And there are local politicians who want to put guardrails up because are they misusing the term “retail space” for these micro fulfillment centers?

Dan (03:43):
Also, the human element too. People don’t really like these bikers, e-bikers, zooming by them with deliveries all the time. So there’s always going to be debates down there on that. I always look at, well you’re not in the Metro area, like in New York City, as you were before. Does Walmart, Target, those big box, Kohls, do they get into this space? Do they look to acquire them? Can they get the labor up there and the drivers to deliver these items? That’s always going to be a tough thing as well.

Will (04:12):
Yeah, I think the one thing to remember is that as you’re in this space, you’re competing against some of the most highly sought after workers when you’re looking to run your business. Drivers right now have their pick at the litter of where they want to go. You have Uber, you have the Uber Eats, you have the delivery business, you have trucking that is lacking from drivers as well. Everybody’s looking to deliver and provide convenience there, so that pool of people really is small to begin with, and you continue to drive value from that group.

Will (04:45):
And then the other part is you need the people to do the shopping. You know, when I go to the grocery store, I still see all the “for hire” signs or “help needed” signs saying that we need people to do the online orders, we need people to part-time shop, we need people to compile and do some of the delivery. And at some point you’re going to have to consolidate to support because, we see from the U.S. growth rates, we’re still not growing at the point to where there’s going to be an influx of people to provide support for these jobs.

Dan (05:15):
And do people want to pay more for their goods to be delivered, as prices for basic items continue to increase? So that’s something to look out for in the short term as well.

Will (05:27):
Well, we hope you guys all enjoy this episode. Please rate, review, subscribe. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at hello@aimble.com, and we’ll see you guys all next week.