The Best One Yet - 🧑‍🎤👩‍🎤 “T-Swift vs. Bey” — The $1B Concert Battle. Twitter’s new CEO. Death of the free ecommerce return.

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

For years, we’ve all been enjoying free returns on online orders, until now — Because returns are the Achilles Heel of ecommerce. Beyonce and Taylor Swift are both on track for the first ever $1B concert tour, but they are getting there in different ways. And Twitter has a new CEO — the question is will Elon let her do her job. $AMZN $LYV $CMCSAWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. Welcome back. It is Monday, May 15th, and today's pod is the best one yet. It is a T-boy, Jack. Nick is compensating for his lack of step-and-repeat behind him, with T-boy logos all over his person. Jack, I'm going triple T-boy here. I got it on the phone.

I got it on the hat. I got it on the shirt. You want to know about the fourth? What's the fourth? Well, I'm going to save it for the end of the pod. Jack, first story. What do we got on the show, man? Taylor Swift and Beyonce are on pace to have the first concert tours ever grossing

a billion dollars. Same megastar status, different megastar business strategy. For our second story, Elon Musk is stepping down at Twitter, and he just named the new CEO. So Elon says she has one job, but Jack and I think she has a different job. And our third and final story, if you bought something online and want to return it, you're paying a return fee. Yeties, it is the end of the free return party. It is officially over. But yeties, before we hit that fantastic mix, this is how you come back from a weekend where we had buddy timmy's wedding maybe maybe not jack i feel like our buddy timmy belongs in witness protection at this point if he did exist which he may hoarder's almanac week 165 things were running out in the economy jack and i been keeping track for you this week we are running out of plumbers

we repeat there are not enough plumbers right now in america that's right according to npr the number of people applying to become a plumber is down 49% in the past three years Jack, that sounds like we've got ourselves a plumbing problem. Yeah, because we're pretty sure the amount of plumbing we need has only popped in the past three years. And yet, the number of plumbers has only plummeted. In fact, we have a posity of plumbers. You can look it up. But Jack and I noticed this plumber pause, it's been percolating for years. Yeah, here's the reason. During the pandemic, plumbers couldn't train other plumbers in person.

If so facto, fewer plumbers in training three years ago means fewer trained plumbers today. And to fix the plumber plunge, we have to show young people that plumbing can be profitable. We have to show young people that plumbing provides a path to prosperity. Until that, be gentle with your drains. Besties, don't shrink that sink. Yeties, be peaceful to the potty. The next time your drain is clogged, who you got to call, Jack? Our Ghostbusters?

Super Mario? He's a plumber. I'd rather call Super Mario. Oh, exactly, Super Mario. Peter Piper picked a pack of pickle peppers. But Peter Piper can unplug a pipe like a plumber can. Yeties, when in doubt, plumbering. it out. Let's pit our three stories.

15 years before this song, two boys from the northeast, 50% let's be ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. For our first story, there is a race going on right now, Yetis, and that race is to be the first billion dollar concert tour.

It's between Beyonce and Taylor Swift. Same megastar status, different megastar strategies. All right, Jack, before we jump into this T-boy style, favorite concert, what you got? The Ben and Jerry's summer concert series, Nathaniel Raitliff in the Night Sweats, 2016 and 2017. Nothing like a little lactose and dairy to make that concert come alive with your Red Bull. Fireball and fish food.

Actually, my favorite concert was when I went to Avichy for the first time and I borrowed your jeans because I thought that was the required wear. Levels. Enough said. Levels, exactly. But yet there is one thing that no concert tour has ever done. And what is that, Jack? No musical concert tour.

has ever passed $1 billion in gross sales. $1 billion in sales. That includes tickets, merchandise, food and beverage, all the orange soda you need. Vodka Red Bulls, Spike Seltzers, those big foam fingers, the whole deal. But Jack and I look at the numbers and we noticed this could potentially be the year. This could be the year. And we looked at Live Nation's numbers to discover that. Yes, we did.

Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, just said that event attendance is up 24% since last year to a fresh new record. So this could be the year. So far, no musical concert tour has passed a billion dollars in gross sales. So far, no concert series has passed the $1 billion elusive unicorn mark. The leader right now is Elton John, who in his final farewell tour brought in $800 million. The Rocket Man got so close to a billion dollars, Jack, but he just didn't make it. But this could be the year, two of the biggest artists ever on their two biggest tours ever.

Yeties, we're talking about Taylor Swift and Beyonce. Taylor Swift's Ares Tour and Beyonce's Renaissance Tour. Yeah, it's like Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa going at it like a battle. Two people in one year could both break the record in the same year. This is actually an economist dream because we can compare a lot of the numbers because a lot of the numbers are the same for the two. Both Beyonce and Taylor Swift are doing over 50 shows. And both Taylor Swift and Beyonce have roughly the same really high average ticket price.

We're both selling tickets for this tour at about $450 a pop. $4.50 a pop. Jack, if you bring a family of four, that's like $2,000. You could go to Tuscany for the weekend, or you could spend three hours at the Taylor Swift concert. Do you want to see Beyonce or do you want to go to Abiza? And if Beyonce and Taylor Swift keep 70% of each ticket sale. Which typically, contractually, they do get together. Then they'll hit the $1 billion mark that no musician ever has before.

So, Yeties, let's add all this up. We've got super high average ticket prices. we've got huge tour date numbers, and they are selling out at record paces. That puts both Taylor Swift and Beyonce on track for the biggest, highest grossing music tours ever. But, Jack, before we just shake it off and cuff it up, we should sprinkle on a little context here. A lot of these two sound the same so far, but there's one key difference between Beyonce and Taylor Swift. And that sounds like our takeaway cue. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the music industry?

These two have different voices and they have different business models too. So yet, he's fascinating thing. Jack and I noticed when we were doing our research that Taylor Swift and Beyonce actually use very different strategies for their concerts. Taylor Swift is building a more accessible lifestyle brand for herself, while Beyonce is an aspirational figure. Okay, and we can see this reflected in Taylor Swift's focus on merchandise. Merch. Taylor Swift sells merch on her website all the time, really high sales. She sells even more merch at concerts. How much merch, Jack?

She sells out at every concert, and she usually stocks about 30,000 items of Taylor Switch merch at each concert. Okay, that's Taylor Swift. Beyonce, on the other hand, focuses less on merch and more on brand sponsors. Beyonce makes big money with her tour's financial sponsor, which is Citibank, The Bank. And her tour's luxury sponsor. Which is Tiffany's The Jewelry. Two different strategies for these two differently branded women. One of them is relatable. Taylor Swift, born in 1989. One of them is aspirational.

Beyonce, born a queen. And this year, both may pass the elusive $1 billion concert milestone. For our second story, on Friday, Elon named a new Twitter CEO, and it is not his cat Mugsy. No, it's not. And her job, this new CEO,

it's to rebuild the ad sales business that Elon destroyed. Yeah, do you know Elon Musk reminds Jack and I have? That friend on LinkedIn who has a whole lot of job titles you're not sure about. Elon's resume has a lot of companies on it. Yes, and one of those companies has now officially been bookended. Yes, he is no longer the CEO of Twitter. Yeah, it lasted almost a year, October 22 to May 2023.

That's seven months. He was the chief twit. And over those seven months, as CEO of Twitter, he fired nearly 6,000 people. Now, remarkably, Twitter the app still works despite cutting 85% of employees. This is going to go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest cost cut and layoff in corporate history. But Yetis, here's the new deal. Elon Musk is hanging up the axe. He's switching from firing over to hiring. Yes, he hired the new CEO whose name is Linda Yakorino, the former head of advertising at NBC Universal. Jack, what did Elon say this new CEO's job is to do?

He tweeted this. He said her job is to transform this platform into X, the everything app. Yeties, what Elon wants her to do is to turn Twitter into a super app where you can order food, where you can pay a friend, where you can buy a car all in one place. Or something like that. But Jack and I think that her real job as CEO is actually something else. Yeah. Her job is not to make Twitter into a super app.

It's to bring advertisers back to Twitter. Yeah. Yeties, when Elon took over, he brought immense chaos and controversy. to Twitter. Jack, what do advertisers really dislike? They don't like immense chaos and controversy. No, they don't even like a little bit of chaos and controversy. And all that chaos and controversy caused the big brands to stop advertising on Twitter once Elon arrived. So, Elon tried to offset that loss in ad revenues by launching a subscription product. The $8 a month Twitter blue subscription, but that didn't work at all. And that is why this new CEO of Twitter is actually

a former ad executive. Yeah, she's going to be an ad executive again. now at Twitter as the CEO. Because last we checked, Twitter used to bring in like $5 billion a year in ad revenue. We don't know how much Twitter makes anymore because they're private, but we don't think it's close to that much. So her number one job, it isn't build a super app. It's actually to sell $5 billion in ads. Otherwise, Twitter is the losing investment for Elon that just keeps on losing more and more

money. And that's something Elon doesn't want to humble brag on a LinkedIn post. So, Jag, what's the takeaway for our business? buddies over at Twitter. The question isn't whether she can do her job. It's whether Elon will let her. Yet he's Elon isn't the bossy CEO anymore, but technically he's now the CEO's boss. So will Elon let Linda Yakorino run her business, have autonomy, and make decisions like a CEO must? Or will he be a helicopter owner constantly looking over her shoulder? Can Elon let go of this platform that he is so fixated on? Or will he constantly micromanage her and undermine her moves?

Macarino's job is to rebuild the ad business that fell apart under Elon's leadership. The way we see it, it's not whether she can. It's whether Elon will let her. For our third and final story, there is a major new change to your online shopping, and it is sneakily happening right now. We hate to break it to you, but the free return party, it's over. Pack it up, go home. The free returns are donezo. Have you noticed a fee on your credit card that you didn't expect? Disclosure. This is Nick. I ordered some khakis from J. Crew. I returned to them. Also, no judgments. They make great khakis. And I had to pay $7.

Why'd you return them? Because they looked too good. That is not the situation. I needed a slimmer fit. Well, you weren't ready for that $7 return fee, were you? I was not ready for that. Sit down, stand up and really get upset again. Yeties, it is not just J. Crew. Across online shopping, we're seeing fees for returning things. For example, Coles is going to charge you five bucks to return that skirt. If you like those LL bean boots, but they're the wrong size, they're the wrong beans, they're going to charge you $6.50 to get a refund. Abercrombie and Fitch, Zara, DSW, they are all charging $7 to return your online shopping. You thought that cute top from H&M was safe from fees?

Thought it was cute? Thought it was safe. You were wrong. Yeah, H&M is going to start charging for returns this year. Even Amazon, the pioneer of having no fees for anything shipping related. What are they doing, Jack? If you want to return your thing, not at one of their Amazon spots, you're going to have to pay a dollar to drop it off at UPS. Like we said, Yetis, it is the death of the free return. The free return party is over. And according to the Atlantic Magazine, in 2021, 33% of online retailers were charging you a fee to return. Jack, what's that percentage of this year? It's up to 41% of online retailers. Jack, you know what this feels like? This feels like the old hook'em and book them, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does. Because we all got hooked to all. online shopping in the past decade thanks to free shipping and free returns. Well, now that we're all doing it. They're starting to charge us for those returns. They hooked us. Now they're booking us. But yet he's here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. The worst offense of all, what is it, Jack? Bracketing. Bracketing. We are all guilty of bracketing. Actually, our buddy Timmy is a infamous bracketer. He's like known. Like, I don't even think they let him shop at some stores because he does so much bracketing. He used to get three pairs of shoes. He'd get 11.5, 12 and 12 and a half. Pick the one that fit perfect and send the other two back. That's bracketing.

It's when you order multiple sizes to try on at home and then you return the ones that don't fit. Yeah, you would order the medium, but you might be a marge and you might be a medium. So you kind of order everything. You order a medium, a small and a large, and then you end up returning the small and the large. Bracketing. It's convenient for our buddy Timmy. It's a disease for the store that's to him. Because bracketing is why one out of six items bought online gets returned. Bracketers, you're part of the problem. Glad those pants fit, though. Jay crew, it's not you. It's me. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the retail industry? Returns are the Achilles heel of e-commerce. Yeti's returns, they're the ugly underbelly of online shopping. We never had to think about

them, but now we've got to think about them. Selling things online should be more. profitable than selling things in a store. Because you don't have to pay for the physical store or the workers there, the company can have lower costs online. But often selling online is not profitable. And those customer returns, yeah, they're a key reason why. When customers buy things online, they return them twice as often as if they buy things in the store. Twice as much. And that adds up, like those numbers adds up. Each return, it ends up costing about $10 to $20 in stocking and cleaning and restocking, plus shipping. What online commerce saves for not having a store is offset by higher return costs. Well, now that online businesses are struggling to profit, it looks like they're passing on the cost

of those returns over to us. Returns were always the dirty little secret of e-commerce. But not much of a secret anymore. Not a secret anymore. It's on your credit card statement. Yeah, I'm seeing it right now. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to kick off the week? Beyonce and Taylor Swift may pass a billion dollars in six. sales for each of their summer concert tours. They got the same musical milestone, but different business strategies to get them there. For our second story, Twitter's new CEO has one job. Rebuild the ad sales that fell apart under Elon.

The way we see it, the question isn't whether she can do her job. It's whether Elon will let her. And our third and final story is online retailers. They're charging us for returns now. The era of free returns is over. Yeah, high return costs. They are the Achilles heel of e-commerce. Now, time for the best fact yet.

This one sent in by a legendary Yeti duo. Yeah. From Texas and Florida, they teamed up for this one. These two are number one and number two for most submissions of best facts yet. Which is its own best fact yet. That's fantastic. But here's the fact. Here's the fact.

The oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in America. Are you ready for this? Okay, where is it? Is it in Los Angeles? Is it in New York City? Is it on the Upper West Side? Where is this, Jack? You'd think it's in one of those famous Chinatowns, but it's not.

No. the oldest continually operating Chinese restaurant in the United States is in Butte, Montana. It's in Butte, Montana. It's located in a landlock town in a landlock state. We were talking about the famous Pekin Noodle Parlor, founded in 1908 by Hum Yao and Tam Kwong Yi. Pekin Noodle Parlor is still operated by the Tam family 115 years later. It's operated by the founder's great-grandson, Jerry Tam, now, who calls this restaurant, The embodiment of the American dream. Wow.

Yeties, you look fantastic out there. Jack, you're looking fantastic. Did you call your mother this weekend, by the way? Did you call your mother? Absolutely. You called Jennifer? I call three different mothers, actually. Actually, you saw my mother this weekend, you know?

I did. I did. I gave her a full bear hug. A little too much squeeze, actually. Yes, like a bottle of mayo. Yeties, if you haven't yet, call your mother, she gave you life. She deserves everything. Bagels.

Jack and I, we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, Ahoy and congratulations to Yeti Zander, who's turned in 9 in Virginia with a ship-themed birthday party. What's a pirate's favorite letter? Zander. You thought I'd say R, but it's the sea.

And happy birthday to Benji Hay over in Brooklyn. Happy 32nd birthday to Mark Schillen in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Naraya Abara, happy 15th birthday on the way to school in Burbank, California. Happy birthday to Carolina the T-Rex Coursera, turning five down in Atlanta. And Shake our T-Coop, we see that birthday over in Johns Creek, Georgia. Happy birthday to Gia Mahita in Toronto, Canada.

And Alec Milgi just got promoted at Tesla to senior engineer, not too shabby, there we go, Alec. And Brian Steinfeld is starting a new job in the travel industry down in Georgia. It's in the hall. And congratulations to Nina and Justin Coleman, a couple of dinkwads from Philadelphia who just got married. And a shout out and thank you to Millie Milhouser and Ray Rodriguez over at Spotify, who let us use the Spotify studio in lovely New York City. It's a great studio. It's in Kings

County, isn't it? If you know, you know. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon. Continuously operating is that. That's the key. They've just had like a burner on the whole time to get this record. It's just like one walk they've got going for like a hundred years. They just didn't like the door. They're like, don't touch that. We're open for business. Just throw some broccoli out. I don't know. Anything that keeps the actor going.