The Best One Yet - Zola launches “Honeymoons,” Target adds Disney stores-within-stores, and HP drops 10% because printers are like fax machines

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

Target is pulling a Best Buy — it’s adding Disney stores within its own stores (and it kind of looks like the future of malls). HP dropped 10% because printers are the new fax machines, but a shrinking business could become a growing one. And wedding registry icon Zola is engaged to become a unicorn — the $650M startup launches an end-to-end Honeymoon booking service.Learn 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. And this is Snacks Daily. Welcome back. It is Monday, October 7th. We got the best one yet. The best snacks daily we've ever done. Jack, what is going on right now?

Target, the Big Box Department Store, is adding little mini Disney stores within Target stores. We're jumping into the stores and we know what you're thinking right now. Sounds kind of like a mall. Sounds like a mall. Pretty much sounds like a mall. A big store with lots of small stores within it so you can go to one place to do one thing. They should call it a small, a small mall run with that target. Second story.

is HP Hewlett-Packard. I got to say, the printer at this point has become the facts. Jack, you're thinking irrelevant? Are you thinking irrelevant over there? I'm thinking irrelevant. Here's the problem. HP makes 80% of its profits off printers. And the stock just fell 10% because they're cutting 9,000 jobs.

Third and final story? Our third and final story is engaged to be a unicorn. Congratulations, Zola. Not an unicorn yet, but it's engaged. We're talking about Zola. It's worth $650 million. And it does wedding registries. but now it's getting into honeymoon.

It really wants to stay friends after the wedding. Now, before we get into those stories, we got to give you an update. Snacks Daily, the pod you love, hit number six last week in the business and tech category and Spotify. Exactly. It's right up there with Wall Street Journal, NPR, and actually I think Wall Street Journal and NPR are up there with Snacks Daily now. Got another update.

Snacks Minute, our two-minute version we made for Spotify, hit number six as well, but number six overall across all podcasts. talking about the Snacks world hanging out with the New York Times, the daily on a daily basis. It is an honor to get such rankings. And Nick and I, we break a mental sweat. We break a emotional sweat every day to make this podcast for you. I got sweat wicking gear whenever we're in that podcast room. Jack and I have to stretch before every podcast. Not everyone knows that. We just want to say straight up, thank you for listening today. And thank you for listening every day to Snacks Daily. Snackers, you send us your snack fast. You jump into T-Boy Tuesday. We couldn't be doing

this without you. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get some. It snacks about the hearing food. It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robberhood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities.

It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. Nick, you're ready to hit the pod? Let's do this. For our first story, Target just opened Disney stores within Target stores within Disney stores within Target.

This is like an Amazon package you get delivered to your front door. You got a box and then a box within that and then bubble wrap within that and then another box and then a toothbrow. You're like, thank God they protected this thing with the carbon footprint of an entire Latin American economy. So we're talking store within a store, a Disney within a Target and starting Friday, this past Friday, 25 targets will have Disney stores between Isle 6 and Isle 7. We're talking board games, action figures based on recent movies. This is a Disney segmented store, Disney branding. You're immersed in the Maginal Kingdom for like a little bit.

When you wish upon a star, Texas and Florida are getting a whole bunch of Disneyland in targets. They basically, Texas and Florida got the most of these stores within a stores. But if your local target didn't get one, they're going to launch like 40 more of these Disney stores within targets next year. Yep, so there's 25 in existence already and 40 more to come. They're going to have interactive displays. They're going to have big Disney branding. They're also going to be playing Disney movies so that like your kiddos can go and watch Coco while you're shopping.

Jack, small world after all. But by the way, there's one thing Jack and I noticed that really stood out for us, and it was the insecurity. Yes. If you look at Target's press release on this thing, they mentioned like three or four times these toys, they're only going to be available at Target. When you see the pictures, they literally have stickers in the Disney store,

store within a target that say like, you can only get this here. You can only get this here. Don't even comparison shop online. It's only a target. Relax. Relax. Now, this is interesting to us because it times up with two very specific things for Disney, the holidays and Disney movies. Snackers, it's October. Do you know what happens next month? Yeah, stress. Nick, do you know what happens next month? Disney Plus. Boom. $7 a month. Disney Plus comes out is the Netflix competitor. So they're going to have all sorts of Star Wars movies, Star Wars TV spinoffs, Frozen 2, Disney. Disney Plus streaming is coming, and they can market it through these Target stores. So you're going to show up at this target like Disney store, and you're going to get the

else address for like your niece. You're going to get a reindeer toy for yourself because it just looks cool. Maybe. I'm okay with that. And then you're going to notice there's not much Mickey stuff. It's mostly new Disney stuff. Yeah, these are like store billboards to promote Disney's new movies and new shows. Also, Nick, holiday season is coming up. Yep. Toys R Us is still bankrupt, and those stockings aren't going to stuff themselves. So we know what you're thinking at this point. Where did Target get this store within a store concept that's so meta and impressive? Pretty easy. Best Buy. Best Buy perfected the shop within a shop concept. When you've walked into a Best Buy, you've probably noticed there's like the land of Apple,

the territory of Samsung, and like Sony a Stan in one section. They've all got their own things going on. Each of these little electronic mini stores, they're about 750 square feet, about the size of a small New York City apartment, and just enough space to sell you some devices and gadgets. Actually, I think 750 square feet is the size of like a four bedroom in Manhattan. True. Very true. They squeeze a lot of banks that. And what they're doing strategy-wise is they have like a whole dedicated staff of like Samsung ninjas, Apple experts and Sony legends who know it. And that's exactly what they're doing at Target. So Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over

at Target and Disney? I got to say, a bunch of little stores within one big store. I know you're thinking. Sounds like a mall. It sounds like a mall, Jack, because it is the mall. It's Mall 2.0. Big box stores like Walmart and Target and Nordstrom and Marshalls, they're all all taking on stores within their stores to neutralize an advantage of e-commerce, which is one-stop shopping. So now you get the selection convenience and test this thing out before I buy it, that you used to get in a mall. Now you get it at the store within a store. But it's smaller than a mall. There's not as much wasted space.

It's more efficient and there's lower inventory, so it's better for profits. So it's a reason to go to Target instead of going to your Chrome browser. Nick, so malls were dying, but now they're coming back in a different form rising from the ashes like a Phoenix. That's a beautiful poem. For our second story, HP just announced 7 to 9,000 job cuts. Because shocker, printer sales are slowing. Didn't see that one coming. Jack, can we talk about the storied HP history and milestones? January, 1939.

Good time of year. Bill Hewitt and Dave Packard start HP in a garage in Palo Alto, California. Yeah, let's fast forward like 80 years. People buy computers. They get printers. What happens in 2015? The company gets split up. into a high-growth company and a low-growth company. There's two HPs. Yeah, you've heard the letter

is H.P. a bunch of times. There are now two H.P. companies out there. We're going to focus on one in particular. If you go to Robin Hood and type in Hulet-Packard, Enterprises, that's the fast-growth one, and Hulet-Packard, Inc. That's what we're focusing on in this path. Hulet-Packard, Inc. And H.P. Inc. is making the printers and computers, and it's got about 50,000 employees doing all this. That's a lot of people making computers and printers. And the news, it's shrinking that headcount from 55,000 down by 15%. That means cutting 7 to 9,000 jobs. And they're thinking this is going to save money,

like, you know, give or take a billion dollars a year, not too shab. Now, here's the problem for Hewlett-Packard. Printers are becoming the fax machine. And here's like the second problem for Hewlett-Packard. Those printers happen to be H.P.'s profit puppy. Let's talk quick about H.P.'s business model. It's a classic business model literally written into textbooks. It sells printers, yep, practically for free at a big loss, and then gets you hooked on expensive

ink cartridges that are basically a rip-off. So we've all been there. All right, so you're starting off, second year of school, it's sophomore year, you kind of realize you need to print some papers. You get the cheaper $45 printer from HP, and then you're splurging a cool, I don't know, $75 a month so you can print in color. Actually, dude, you're getting an HP, and then the printer probably comes for free. Exactly. But then you go into like best buy to find your printer car. There's a hundred different printer cartridges, and each one only works for one printer model. In fact, HP is so dedicated to this ripping off policy of the printer printer ink model, they are suing knockoff companies.

Yeah, if there's a company that makes like a one-size-fits-all printer cartridge, that's only five bucks, they're getting sued by HP. Yeah, HP doesn't want you like refilling with substandard ink, even though you don't care. You just need something on the paper over here. But let's be honest, you probably don't even need something on the paper over here. printers are becoming obsolete. Jack and I whipped out the whiteboard to go through a few examples on this one. Doc you sign, you're signing things and you're making the printer obsolete before you pay your rent. No need to print contracts. Look at Stubhub and Ticketmaster. Both of them, you have a ticket to a Yankee game. You don't need to print it. Just show your mobile phone.

Even Amtrak over here. It's not a great app, but you can still use the app and never have to print off one of those six-page long PDFs. Even if you don't have the app, they'll send you the PDF ticket for Amtrak. And if you show that to the conductor who's got that fancy conductor hat, you're good to go. And Jack and I aren't like in fifth grade reading Catcher in the Rye anymore these days, but apparently the teachers right now are Google Doc. My beautiful seventh grade teacher wife, Alexandra, Google Doc with red font comments. You don't need to print. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at HP? A shrinking business can also, in a crazy way, become a growing business. So printers aren't coming back over here. HP sales are like three quarters of what they were six years ago. But that may not be the issue. And as sales and

profit shrink, which is happening for HP, the stock price tends to shrink too. So like, why would you even own this company? But here is the hope that HP has. It's that other printer companies, they could end up failing first. And then that would leave HP in a pretty interesting situation. HP's market share in printers, the percentage of all the printers that it sells is growing because it's like a war of attrition and HP is still there. So it's basically like all these printer companies, they're on a cliff. They've all got one hand holding themselves off for survival, and HP's like pushing everyone else off the cliff, but it's barely hanging on over there. Now, as other competitors die out, HP will have pricing power. They can raise the prices

of printers. And at the same time, you know, lay off 9,000 workers like they did last week to save money. So HP's business may be shrinking, but HP may be growing in the printer biz. HP is also innovating its business model bit, not just the cheap printers and the rip-off ink cartridges. No, they're also going to offer printers that are more expensive, but the printers will let you use like any other type of ink. For our third final story, Zola, the Wedding Registry icon, is launching a honeymoon travel booking service. Expensive facts of the day about honeymoon? Hit me. The average honeymoon cost $7,000. Jack, can you repeat after me? Will you cover this story in as digestible and snacky away as possible? Not going to repeat that, but I will say, I do.

Will you faithfully help us get to the takeaway? I will. And will you tell us about Zola right now. I will. Zola is a $650 million company known for its online wedding registries. You're picking up, you're doing the zap gun thing, you just do it all digitally with Zola. Shan Lin-Mah is the CEO and founder of Zola and just went on TechCrunch to announce a new service, honeymoon. Now, this is not a honeymoon registry. Yeah, this is not like, I want $200 to get a really oily massage by Lake Cuomo in Italy. This is a vacation package that's like going to include a lot of things. It's an end-to-end vacation package, like, you know, JFK Airport to Bali for nine days. Then you're staying in the jungle bungalow. They're going to do the flowers on the bed and maybe the crane thing

with the towels as well if you're lucky. Details are light on this new service, but you'll basically go to the website, which, by the way, is just a landing page with a wait list at this point, and you will choose the couple slash vacation style that you and your couple are. Right. So, you know, we're thinking the ideas here could be maybe are you like the beach relax couple? Are you the adventure? couple? Are you the wine and dine couple? And based on those few questions, you'll get a menu of options with various destinations and price ranges, and then you'll just put a whole honeymoon in your shopping car and push by. Boom, Zola's going to give you like the Cabo Caribbean Cool-Off option, or like the San Jovesi Tuscan Journey option. Now, Zola's got a problem. It's best customers which use its wedding gift registry.

They're done being customers after just a year. And full disclosure here, Jack and I have both used the service and love the service, except after 18 months while you're planning for the wedding, then you're going like MIA on the thing. Yeah, you use it for wedding invitations. You use it to build a website. And of course, you use it to put on every new thing that you want in your kitchen because you need to, of course, replace everything in your kitchen when you get married. Boom, but like the day after the Sunday brunch, when you all get together post-wedding, you stop losing Zola, just like you stop talking to that like one bridesmaid who you don't talk to the next time she has a kid. So now Zola's thinking, okay, we were involved in the wedding. That was great. We made some

cash, but what other life moments can we get involved in and provide a similar service? Could they do babies and nanny shares? I'm thinking baby moons and paternity leave moons. And then they wheel that up into more life moments, and before you know it, their customers lasting for more than 18 months. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are having a blast over its old? Honeymoons are hard, and that is a service that somebody should solve. Okay, think of booking any major trip and then add a ridiculous amount of stress to it. So you got like the hotel, the Airbnb. the airline, the taxis, the rental car, the dinner reservations, and someone's probably going to forget

it's your big day and not leave a champagne in the hotel room. Before you know it, you have a side hustle, which was just planning your honeymoon. Now, this is what we thought was fascinating about what Zola's doing here. They used a key word, end to end. Yeah, and that means they're going to take the whole fragmented experience of booking a honeymoon, and they're going to handle everything from end to end. And after you use this kind of thing, you're probably going to think, I use this in the most crazy of life moments. I'm going to use this maybe to book my next. kind of package when we have that kit. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there?

Target is opening mini Disney stores within targets. The mall is back, but in a different form, it's stores within stores. It's kind of a small, a small mall. HP is laying off seven to nine thousand people just hoping to survive longer than the competition in the printer. That way it can make more profits, even if printer sales fall. Third and final story, Zola is extending its relationship from just your wedding to your other wedding-ish events in your life.

Basically, the more expensive your life gets, the more Zola wants to get involved to be friends with you. So time for our snack fact of the day. This one's sent by a great snacker who goes back a long ways. Mustafa Hoda, who's a big fan of Chicago, he's based there. We got to meet Mustafa the other day. Great guy and told us something about the city he lives in Chicago. Chicago, his hometown, isn't called the windy city just because of the weather. There's actually another big reason. So in like the 1850s, journalists in some newspapers started referring to Chicago as the windy city because they thought the politicians were just full of hot air. Those Chicago politicians were just blowing wind through the streets. By the way, you'll leave it. Empty promises.

Total coincidence. You walk out of Pizzeria Uno and there happens to be a wind smack in the face before the Bears game. It is a bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter cold winter in Chicago. Snackers, before we let you guys go, we got to talk about the winner of last T-Boy Tuesday, which was trying to name the best clothing rental company. Simply said, carpe denim, courtesy of Sean Tyner of Orange County, great Snackers, Sean, we're going to get you that T-Boy shirt. By the way, we got another T-Boy Tuesday today. Check out at Robin Hood Snacks on Twitter. We are trying to figure out the best name for Corona's alcoholic-based seltzer. Snackers, hit us with your T-Boy Tuesday ideas. Talk to you tomorrow.