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- Chewy's Autoship is a loyalty engine
Chewy's Autoship is a loyalty engine
Stephen Babcock
June 02, 2023
Chewy’s subscription program posted a record in the first quarter, accounting for 75% of sales on the pet marketplace. The program benefits from a “symbiotic relationship” between Chewy and vendors, while providing a massive base of recurring revenue. At a time when retailers are prizing lifetime value and loyalty, Autoship is a long-running example of a program designed to deliver these results that is seeing gains now.
Shop Cash will provide 1% cash back on eligible purchases through Shop Pay. This is a move to boost the Shop app, where the cash rewards are tracked and can be redeemed on purchases. After adding more features to boost browsing and buying on an app that originated as an order tracker, Shopify is now providing more reasons to keep returning to Shop.
Amazon’s latest fulfillment automation efforts are focused on finding items that are damaged before they get shipped out. Currently, human employees look for items that are tarnished, but it can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, as only one out of every 1,000 items have damage. Introducing AI, which is currently being employed at two warehouses, will speed up the pick-and-pack process. – The Wall Street Journal
Ask Instacart will harness generative AI to answer open-ended questions from shoppers with not only ingredients, but also food prep tips and dietary info. It also integrates with sponsored products campaigns, showing there’s room for retail media in AI-powered search.
The labor market is still running hot, as job gains bounced back above the 300K-mark in May. Even though unemployment ticked up by 0.3% to 3.7%, it is still historically low. This will continue to be good for consumer demand, but is likely to cause concern at the Federal Reserve as central bankers consider interest rate hikes that cool the economy.