The Setup:

Investors are closely focused on studying pricing dynamics and cross-shopper perceptions between Wayfair and Amazon for identical items.

Why This Matters:

Simply put: If cross-shoppers notice cheaper prices on Amazon, they’d be more likely over-time to gravitate toward buying these items from Amazon.

What we are finding: (Charts Below)

1. Reality: Wayfair is more expensive on identical products (nearly 80% of the time).
   
2. Perception: 61.7% of cross-shoppers say Amazon was less expensive. IE – the collective came to the accurate conclusion, but for nearly 40% of cross-shoppers there is still a disconnect between perception and reality.
   
3. What is Wayfair’s Pricing Trick? More Discounts and Steeper Discount Percentages... Across the 126 identical items we found Wayfair had a discount noted 73% of the time, compared to Amazon at only 39.7% of the time. Wayfair’s discounts, when applied, were steeper, too (22.4%, on average, compared to Amazon at 12.1%).

Start a Trial To Gain Incremental and Crucial Insight:

1. What percentage of Wayfair shoppers are cross-shopping Amazon?
2. Is cross-shopping increasing or decreasing?
3. What percentage of the time do cross-shoppers say they find identical items?
4. Is there anything else about the Wayfair experience that increases loyalty? IE – product visualization, search with image, etc.

The Set Up:
We have been tracking usage mix on the SNAP app over a number of months to see if usage behavior is shifting

Why it is important:
Stories and discover are more easily monetized than messaging, so a shift in usage toward stories and discover would be a positive.

Evidence | What We Are Finding:

Usage mix has been shifting toward stories / discover. We plan to dig in on this further and scope additional factors that may increase engagement with discover/stories in the coming months.

The Set-Up:
AAPL is trading near all-time highs and expectations have been lofty for the upcoming iPhone 12 launch.

Thesis Based Questions:
1. Will financial distress caused by Covid and “shelter-in-place” / social distancing create an unexpected headwind?

2. In China, will rising negative sentiment toward US / China relations impact demand for the iPhone 12?

Evidence | What We Found:

1. There is a cohort of consumers who are already saying they were interested in getting the iPhone 12 but will probably not because of Covid and financial stress. Even among those who say they will probably or definitely get it, ~70% say Covid and financial stress might/will impact the amount they spend.
   
2. Negative sentiment toward US/China relations has been steadily rising among consumers in China. Our data suggests the biggest impact will be in the form of it becoming harder to win Android users over during the next upgrade cycle (ie, Android owners who say US/China relations are good are meaningfully more likely to say they intend to get an iPhone next compared to those who say relations are bad).

Charts:

The Set-Up:
W is off some ~53% from all-time highs set in March of 2019. Rising costs, increased competition, and China concerns have investors worried about growth prospects.

Thesis Based Questions:
1. What percentage of Wayfair customers cross-shop Amazon for the same item, and which platform do cross-shoppers feel is better when it comes to pricing, selection, and visualization?

2. Is the Wayfair shopping experience meaningfully better (or worse) than shopping with online and in-store competitors?

3. Are features like “view in room” and “search with photo” game changers for users?

Evidence | What We Found:
1. “Search with Photo” and “View in Room” move the needle.

2. There is a good deal of cross-shopping with Amazon. Cross-shoppers are slightly more likely to think Amazon is better for pricing, but they are meaningfully more likely to favor Wayfair for product selection and visualization.

3. Wayfair users are more likely to see it as a better shopping experience than shopping for furniture at other online websites/apps.

View our full coverage and sign up for a free trial here: Bespoke Intel Coverage

GRUB is off 40%+ today following yesterday’s earnings release. After parsing through managements’ commentary we thought it might be helpful to validate some of their comments.

The two pieces we are going to focus on are:

1. GRUB referenced competition increasing from the likes of Uber Eats and Door Dash.
2. GRUB explained that Uber Eats and Door Dash have won share via bring promotional.

What our survey has been saying:

1. GRUB has been losing share to Uber Eats and Door Dash. In the past year alone, the percentage of Grubhub users who ALSO use Door Dash has nearly doubled.
2. Users of Uber Eats and Door Dash have been increasingly likely to view pricing/value from Uber Eats and Door Dash more favorably in recent quarters. IE – Grubhub isn’t the only one that has noticed competitors getting more promotional, users of each platform have noticed too.

Some charts to show you what we mean:

Third party delivery apps have come more into buyside focus recently. The disruption being brought to the space will create inflection points for winners and losers. We have useful insights with history on casual dining, third party delivery, meal kits, grocery delivery, etc. One of the bigger changes we’ve noticed in our data DoorDash’s quick ascent in our charts. Flagging it below as just a small slice of our interesting primary research on the space.

With this increase in usage of third party food delivery apps we’ve seen a large uptick in interest in scoping how this is/will impact DPZ. The data we have on DPZ and third party food delivery apps is a great example of how powerful primary research can be at providing a deeper understanding of a situation than other investors might have at the moment. If you would like to discuss any of this with us please let us know! ([email protected] or 914-630-0512).

Use cases for social media platforms in India vary greatly. Below is a rundown of what account holders with each platform use it for.

The word clouds below serve as an interesting excerpt from our detailed survey of social media trends in India. If you are interested in our primary research on this topic, please let us know ([email protected]).

With increasing competition in the US putting NFLX under pressure, investors are spending a lot of time focusing on the international landscape. India is a battleground that seems to be of interest at the moment, so we decided to launch coverage of NFLX in India to go along with our existing survey deep dives in the US (27 quarterly volumes) and UK (15 quarterly volumes).

This is only a small slice of our data, but it is interesting nonetheless. 40.4% of non-subscribers would be interested in a paid subscription. The median price they would be willing to pay is Rs 199. That is the exact price that Netflix chose for its mobile only plan released in India this year.

In addition to being an interesting data point, these results make a good argument for why using survey data is important. It is no coincidence that Netflix chose the exact price point that would appeal to the median non-subscriber. They likely ran survey like this one their own! By seeing the rest of our insights in our full report, you will be armed with the types of insights companies you invest in likely use.

Our PTON survey results have a balance of positives in negatives for investors to consider. Below is one area we are highlighting because we haven’t heard it being discussed as much. Consumers who are higher income, consumers whose financial situation has improved in the past year, and consumers who have moved recently are considerably more likely to own Peloton products. The main reason we are highlighting these slides is this: if we move into a recession, the customer segments/profiling that over-index the most as Peloton customers could impact the demand outlook. As noted earlier, our report includes a balance of positives and negatives (including a customer base that is very excited about the brand). We just wanted to flag an interesting and worthwhile thought exercise around threats to the upcoming demand landscape.