So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 111) Why you may never have to shop outside the home again
Hello! Apologies for the drift out of your inbox again: la rentrée has been epic around these parts and we're all adjusting to a perfect storm of extracurriculars plus tech events plus social lives plus deadlines.
Speaking of tech events: I covered the Apple product announcements last week and cannot stop thinking about the part of the demo where Tim Cook demonstrated how the Apple watch can be used for expectant mothers to perform fetal non-stress tests, then beam the results to their medical care provider. Why is this top of mind for me? Because I can't stop comparing it to the self-checkouts in grocery stores (vol 1, issue 14) or iPads taking orders at restaurants (vol 2, issue 108): When you shift the labor to the customer (or patient), who loses their job?
Weird future-of-work implications aside, who here is psyched about the Apple Watch? Shoot me your glowing reviews or covetous monologues or deeply-felt eyerolls via Twitter or email.
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Good news to those of us who have made "Never again set foot in a store" one of our life goals: Competition is heating up in the we-schlepp-things-to-you space. I had an anecdotal idea of this when I got a piece of mail from Costco announcing its next-day delivery partnership with Google Express (Google also made a delivery partnership with Whole Foods, so between those two brands, three guesses as to which consumer segment they're targeting), but there's speculation on the money to be made in the delivery space. Analysts allege that Amazon Prime revenue will be the engine that drives Amazon's sales growth, because the longer Amazon Prime customers stick with the service, the more money they tend to spend. And if a recent piece in STORES magazine is any indication, retailers took Prime Day seriously as proof that shoppers can and will respond to dramatic promotions and best-in-breed services.
So what? The trend toward "Oh my God, just send this stuff to my house" should point to a bigger story: Middle-class and affluent Americans are either fond of convenience or severely time-crunched, and being able to set up delivery of goods is one way these consumers have freed up extra time. Retailers' challenge is to figure out exactly how much consumers value their time? Do they value it $99-per-year worth?
Who cares? WalMart. It's one thing for Google to target a consumer segment that's largely categorized as affluent (more on that in vol 1, issue 38), but it's another for Amazon to nab the price-conscious consumer that WalMart previously enjoyed a monopoly upon (vol 2, issue 93). Wal-Mart's been fighting back with its own Prime-esque program with a mere $50 annual fee (vol 2, issue 55). But they're not quite dominating online e-commerce yet.
Costco should care too -- the new service Jet.com, which is a $50 annually (not much different than Costco's $55 membership) has racked up one notable customer stat so far:
Since its debut, Jet has had a 23 percent repeat buyer rate, better than the 17 percent seen at eBay and the 11 percent seen at Amazon during the same time period.
It's worth noting that Jet.com isn't positioning itself as an Amazon Prime competitor. Rather, it's positioning itself as a place to buy things online at a steep discount, and it's betting the lure of discounted goods will pull more shoppers online to its site. It will be interesting to see what overlap there is between Jet.com customers and Costco customers -- or whether Google Express will fill those Costco customer's "bring it to me!" needs.
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Your pop-culture note of the day: September is the perfect month to be in Hawaii -- the summer crowds are gone but the summery-warm weather and waves remain.
If you can't hike around Kaua'i this month, might I suggest reading Tara Bray Smith's West of Then: A Mother, a Daughter and Journey Past Paradise? It's a memoir about having a difficult mother -- one who happens to be a fifth generation Hawaiian, albeit a haole -- and the history of Bray Smith's relationship with her mother is interleaved with the 200-odd years of heartbreaking Hawaiian history.
Then watch the 30 for 30 Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau, which masterfully illustrates how the world's greatest lifeguard-cum-surfing-legend Eddie Aikau strove to preserve the majesty of Hawaiian culture while also extending a welcoming hand to outsiders. Aikau, as you may or may not know, sacrificed his life during the Hōkūle‘a's maiden voyage to follow the Polynesian migration route between Hawai'i and Tahiti. The documentary -- available via Netflix or streaming on Amazon Prime -- is well worth watching.
And if you can't get to the documentary, this Believer article, "Eddie Is Gone," is a great primer. You can also watch the Drunk History episode "Hawaii" to see how Jason Mantzoukas lip-synchs along to a drunk's recitation of the Eddie Aikau story while simultaneously channeling Eddie Aikau.
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