😡 Paying a fortune in delivery fees

Plus: Fancy handbags are more out of reach than ever, Bonnie Tyler's amazing week, and more. View Online A tech investor dropped $195k at auction to buy a Los Angeles burial crypt right near Marilyn Monroe's final resting place. Buyer Anthony Jabin, who said he's "always dreamt of being next to Marilyn Monroe" for the rest of his life, also bought one of Monroe's swimsuits for ~$29k. There have gotta be better ways of showing one's fandom. Cheaper ones, too. In today's email: Delivery fees: Why your takeout order is so expensive. More pricing madness: Luxury brands get even steeper prices. Why, though?: A cigarette that never lit up sales figures. Around the web: Hollywood's textile hero, should you work for free?, and more. 👇 Listen: Hedge funds and journalists are teaming up. Is it ethical? The Big Idea Why your delivery order comes with a heaping side of fees The messy web of food delivery apps and state regulations hiking up your bill. 2024-04-09T00:00:00Z Sara Friedman We all know the feeling: You're home in front of the TV, treating yourself to your favorite delivery meal, when all of a sudden your $18 ramen turns into a $32 order. It's an experience that will have you eating a Trader Joe's frozen meal in no time — but why is it happening? A bunch of reasons, per Vox: Ordering on a delivery app is usually more expensive than ordering directly from a restaurant. Delivery and services fees are then added to an already pricier bill. DoorDash charges a 15% service fee with a $3 minimum; Uber Eats' service fee depends on basket size. On the other hand, delivery apps can take as much as 30% of an order's subtotal from restaurants. The apps still seem to be doing just fine In 2023, DoorDash's profit margin was almost 49%, and Uber's delivery segment earned $1.5B, a 173% YoY increase. Why, then, has there been so much discourse about delivery services struggling to gain profitability? Probably because they're shelling out billions on growth tactics. DoorDash spent $2B of its $8.6B in 2023 revenue on sales and marketing and $1B on research and development. Plus, it spent $750m on stock buybacks — something Uber plans to spend $7B on this year. Did someone order a whole mess? Joining the unhappy customers and disgruntled restaurants are the frustrated delivery workers. What a party. Delivery workers, who face an increased risk of fatal accidents and on-the-job violence, only pocket a small cut of the fees charged to customers. And they're underpaid for risky work: One 2022 study shows delivery workers in Seattle made an hourly average of $8.71, while another found that those in New York City made ~$11, both well below state minimum wages. New York and Seattle recently put new minimum pay laws into effect for delivery workers, and the reception has been rocky, to say the least. Uber claimed order volume in Seattle dropped 30% following new regulations, and Grubhub wrote that tips dove 26%. DoorDash said Seattle businesses lost $1m+ in revenue — but not before it slapped a $4.99 regulatory fee on all delivery orders. Free Resource Need a safety net for your day job? If you happen to work at one of the 230+ tech companies that have laid off workers this year, then you know darn well exactly what we mean. Either way, having a "just in case" career plan in your pocket can help you prep for any unexpected chaos. Read our blog post that unpacks side-hustling as Plan B, whether you should partake, and five steps to prepping for the future. Safety net notes → TRENDING That's fitting: US searches for Bonnie Tyler's 1983 track "Total Eclipse of the Heart" surged ~50% on Spotify over the past week as people set the mood for yesterday's eclipse. The song also became the second most purchased song on iTunes yesterday, up 30+ spots in one day, and spiked on Google Trends. SNIPPETS Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, compared AI to inventions like the printing press, steam engine, and electricity in the company's latest annual report, saying "the consequences will be extraordinary." Spotify's new AI Playlist tool, which is still in beta and rolling out first to Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia, will let users curate AI-generated playlists using text prompts. Shutterstock is loving the AI gold rush, as the stock image giant has made deals with Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and OpenAI to train their AI models on its image library. Each deal started in the $25m-$50m range and some have expanded in scope. Blackstone is acquiring Apartment Income REIT, an apartment landlord, for ~$10B in cash. The firm will pour $400m+ into the company's portfolio of apartments — its latest housing investment after acquiring single-family landlord Tricon Residential for $3.5B earlier this year. Ansell is buying Australian company Kimberly-Clark's personal protective equipment business for $640m in an all-cash deal. Spirit Airlines is deferring all deliveries of new Airbus planes, originally scheduled for Q2 2025, through 2026. The airline, which also announced it will furlough ~260 pilots, says the changes will boost liquidity over two years by $340m. Ain't that rich: Next time you see an under-30 billionaire, feel free to experience those normal feelings of loathing, just leave the self-loathing behind: All 15 youngsters on Forbes' 2024 billionaires list inherited their wealth. There was nothing you could've done to top them. People's champion: Recent mass layoffs in the video game industry are "kind of sick" and an "avoidable fuck up," per Larian Studios exec Michael Douse. The "Baldur's Gate 3" studio has campaigned against gaming's shareholder-first model, calling it "antithetical" to producing quality. Conquer all docs: Learn every time-saving shortcut in the book by downloading our Google Docs master guide. It covers formatting fundamentals, 25 hotkey commands, and much more. Don't miss this... You might be sabotaging your sales without even knowing it. See nine sales leaders' takes on bad habits you'll want to curb immediately. Data Point Luxury brands have profits in the bag: Luxury goods keep getting more expensive. The price of a medium Lady Dior bag rose from $4.4k in 2019 to $5.9k in 2022, and a medium Chanel flap bag skyrocketed from $5.8k in 2019 to a hefty $8.8k in 2022, per The Business of Fashion. The rising prices represent a shift in the luxury sector, where brands have begun focusing on their wealthiest customers who can afford big price tags. This, of course, risks alienating the majority of consumers who shop for luxury items aspirationally or rarely. But the data shows it's a risk worth taking for brands: The top 2% of luxury customers are responsible for 40% of luxury sales. Fit The Bill There are thousands of companies valued at $1B+. How many clues do you need to identify today's billion-dollar brand? Clue 1: Since its 1910 founding, this company has had 12 CEOs, all with backgrounds in engineering. Clue 2: There may be nothing this company can't build. Just look at the 1960s, when it developed a fully automatic washing machine, finished an experimental nuclear reactor, and mass-produced all-transistor color televisions. Clue 3: This company was integral to the development of Japan's shinkansen (bullet trains), building not only the train cars but also the computer systems that control traffic and signals. Conveniently, its Tokyo HQ is right above the city's main train station. 👇 Scroll to the bottom for the answer 👇 Failure to launch Why, though? A cigarette that didn't smoke RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. was ahead of its time with a smokeless cigarette. Unfortunately, it tasted terrible. 2024-04-09T00:00:00Z Juliet Bennett Rylah The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s umbrella includes several cigarette brands, including Camel, Newport, and Pall Mall. But its so-called "smokeless" cigarette would turn out to be incredibly short-lived. What happened? In 1988, RJR launched Premier, which looked like a regular cigarette but contained tobacco pellets and flavor beads. When lit, users inhaled nicotine aerosol, no tar, and only a little smoke. The idea was that health-conscious consumers could either switch to Premier, or use it as a stepping stone to quitting. What went wrong? RJR tested Premier in both the US — Arizona and Missouri, specifically — and Japan, and smokers in both countries hated the taste. One tester likened it to burning plastic. Also: It was smelly when lit with a traditional sulfur match. It was complicated to light. The product's shortcomings weren't the only trouble: the anti-smoking movement was starting to gain momentum, annually reducing industrywide cigarette sales ~3% throughout the '80s, and narrowing Premier's window for success. In the end, RJR spent an estimated $800m developing Premier, but discontinued it within a year. RJR tried again… … with Eclipse, marketed as a low-smoke alternative, but those were found to be as unhealthy as regular cigarettes. Then, in 2014, came Revo — a similar product that heated, but didn't burn tobacco — but that didn't catch on either. Yet a cigarette you couldn't smoke wasn't that wild an idea, considering how quickly the e-cigarette market took off and its continued popularity. The CDC reported that between 2020 and 2022, monthly e-cigarette sales increased by 46.6%, especially among younger consumers who enjoy their sweet flavors. Thus, it's not surprising that RJR parent company Reynolds American Inc. spun off an e-cigarette subsidiary, RJ Reynolds Vapor, in 2012. However, it continues to grapple with the FDA, which banned its menthol offerings last fall. Perhaps, much like its consumers, RJR finds it hard to… just quit. AROUND THE WEB 🚢 On this day: In 1859, Samuel Clemens received a steamboat pilot's license. It was during this period that the author would hear his future pen name, Mark Twain, referring to a river two fathoms deep. 👚 That's interesting: The textile workshop where Hollywood gets historically accurate costumes. 💸 Haha: Should you work for free? 😴 How to: get your sleep schedule back on track. 😍 Aww: It's possible this baby red panda is too cute. SHARE THE HUSTLE Hey. Don't keep us a secret. Refer just 3 people and we'll send Hustle essentials as a thank you. Share this custom referral link: https://thehustle.co/join?ref=7598767985 Your referral count: 0 Today's Fit the Bill answer is Hitachi (Market cap: $85.14B) Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman. Editing by: Ben "Cutting back to only buying one Chanel bag per day" Berkley. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. PODCAST JOBS CONTACT US The Hustle, 2 Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141, US. Never want to hear from us again? Break our hearts and unsubscribe.