1. Uber Breaks Into the Ad Industry
Uber has discovered yet another way to make money. The company has announced their intent to integrate a full advertising system into their food delivery platform, UberEats. Their goal is to offer advertisements to select restaurants for purchase to boost their food sales. After quietly filing for an IPO last week, the company predicts that this new ad service launch will surely bring in hefty revenues for investors. “There’s a bunch of different ways we can work with restaurants over time. If we have all the restaurants on the marketplace and we give them tools to help them grow, then this will be a very efficient marketplace. They’re going to be spending those ad dollars somewhere,” says Uber’s senior director and head of Eats product Stephen Chau. Uber will essentially offer discounts from these select restaurants on the app to drive demand from UberEats users. Using a term coined “logistics expertise,” Uber will sell data from restaurants to bring in new customers, boost their rankings, and anticipate demand increases.
(Source: The Hustle, Tech Crunch)
2. Dollar General vs. Walmart
Dollar General has hit an all-time high, becoming the fastest growing retailer in the US. Within the next few years, Dollar Tree and Dollar General will have approximately 50K stores (almost 10x as many as Walmart). Although these stores present their products as affordable deals, the deals can be quite deceptive. Many products are more expensive than alternatives bought in bulk. Additionally, these stores are driving many other local stores out of business, lessening the options available to consumers and driving 40% declines in sales for local mom-and-pop stores. “We went where they ain’t,” says Dollar General CEO David Perdue when describing Dollar General’s success in regards to Walmart. Stores like Walmart cost millions of dollars to open while Dollar General stores can open small locations for only $250K.
(Source: The Hustle)
3. Verizon Reduces Workforce by 7%
On Monday, Verizon announced that more than 10K employees have accepted the voluntary buyout offer extended in September to reduce expenditures. By June, 10.4K employees will voluntarily leave the company, some receiving up to 60 weeks’ salary along with bonuses and benefits. Their goal was to save $10B in cash by 2021 by reducing their global workforce by 7%. In doing this, the company believes they can better push into the market 5G technology as they release a 5G smartphone in early 2019. “These changes are well-planned and anticipated, and they will be seamless to our customers,” says Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. “This is a moment in time, given our financial and operational strength, to begin to better serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility.”
