Raphael Stevens

Gopuff began in 2013 as a delivery start-up that catered to college students with late-night snacks and other convenience items.
Now, it is part of a fast-growing field of companies racing to get online orders to customers’ doors.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said Tuesday at the Groceryshop conference that the “instant needs” company has a better business model and more consistent customer experience.

A bag of groceries with the logo of American on-demand delivery start-up Gopuff.

As delivery start-ups race one another to be the speediest, Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said Tuesday that it has staying power to outlast rivals.
He said the venture-backed company not only wants to get diapers, snacks and more to customers’ doors quickly. He said it also wants to deliver a better customer experience and build a profitable business that can scale across the globe.

“I really believe we’re in a category of one,” he said at the Groceryshop conference in Las Vegas.
Gopuff is part of an increasingly crowded field of start-ups that resemble an online version of convenience stores and grocers. Unlike other delivery companies, such as DoorDash and Instacart, GoPuff doesn’t retrieve merchandise from retailers’ stores. Instead, it has its own network of micro-fulfillment centers — mini, high-tech warehouses — stocked with inventory. Contract workers pick up the orders and quickly drop them at customers’ doors in about 30 minutes.
Some competitors, such as Gorillas, Getir and Jokr, have launched in new markets and promised even faster delivery times of 15 minutes or less.
Yet Gola said Gopuff is a veteran in the category. Gopuff coined a term for the group: “instant needs” companies.
Gopuff was born in 2013 when Gola and his cofounder, Rafael Ilishayev, were students at Drexel University in Philadelphia and wanted a way to get late-night snacks such as chips and candy without running to a convenience store. The company began delivering those goods, along with hookahs and tobacco products.

Now, it operates in more than 1,000 cities and carries more than 4,000 items from pet food to over-the-counter medication. Its valuation hit $15 billion in July. And it includes brick-and-mortar stores, which double as warehouses. It acquired two regional alcoholic beverage chains: California-based liquor chain BevMo! in December for $350 million and Kentucky-based Liquor Barn in June for an undisclosed amount.
He said Gopuff is keeping delivery fees low and improving its economics by cutting out the middlemen and making money by selling products and ads. Its delivery fee is $1.95 per order, with an up to $2 additional charge for orders including alcohol.
“Once you have too many parties involved — the store, the driver, the delivery platform itself — you start to erode margin, and the customer experience is not flawless,” he said.
Gola said the company is adding 40 or 50 micro-fulfillment centers every month and pushing into new categories. During the pandemic, it added household items such as cleaning products and at-home Covid-19 tests. It also began delivering hot food, such as coffee, breakfast sandwiches and pizza, in select locations.
The average customer still skews young, he said, in their late 20s or early 30s, but college students make up a shrinking percentage. Gopuff’s fastest growth category year over year has been baby products, he said.

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Mirror founder Brynn Putnam is stepping down from her role as chief executive of the connected fitness company, CNBC has learned.
Lululemon, which owns Mirror, said in a memo to employees that the change is effective immediately.
Putnam will continue to serve as an advisor to Mirror until next July, while the business conducts a search for her successor.

Mirror CEO Brynn Putnam appears on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley”.

Brynn Putnam is stepping down as chief executive of connected fitness company Mirror, which is owned by Lululemon, CNBC has learned.
Putnam, a former professional ballet dancer, founded Mirror in 2016. She will continue to work as an advisor to Mirror until next July, while the company searches for her successor, Putnam along with Lululemon Chief Executive Calvin McDonald and said in a memo to employees that was obtained by CNBC.

Effective immediately, Mirror has tapped three of its leaders to serve as co-leaders: Tess Hales, head of customer; Olivia Lange, head of operations; and Kristie D’Ambrosio-Correll, chief technology officer. They will all report into McDonald.
In the memo, Putnam and McDonald said it was time for the company “to find the right candidate to drive the brand’s next phase of growth.” Lululemon declined to provide further details.
Last year, Lululemon acquired Mirror for $500 million, hoping to capitalize on the feverish demand for at-home exercise equipment during the Covid pandemic. Mirror’s wall-mounted devices cost $1,495, and users pay a monthly fee to stream on-demand fitness classes ranging from yoga flow to kickboxing.
Lululemon had previously invested about $1 million in Mirror, in mid-2019.
Since the acquisition, the apparel retailer has added Mirror shop-in-shops to about 150 of its stores. It’s aiming to grow that count to 200 by the holidays.

But Lululemon is also having to fork over more money to market Mirror, which sits in an increasingly competitive space. Consumers are heading back to gyms. And rivals — which include Peloton, Tonal and Hydrow, among others — are consistently trying to improve their offerings. New investments are also flowing into the category. Hydrow, for example, announced Tuesday it completed fresh financing with celebrity backers Lizzo and Justin Timberlake.
Lululemon’s McDonald told analysts during a conference call earlier this month that Mirror still has “low awareness” among many consumers. And the cost of digital marketing is rising, he said, making it more expensive for the business to acquire new members.
According to Wall Street research firm Jefferies, Peloton held the spot as the most visited online, connected fitness platform in August. The cycle maker is also increasing marketing spending, as visits to fitness centers have been normalizing over the summer. As of earlier this month, Jefferies found gym visits in the United States back to about 90% of January 2020 levels, and down just 1% from the same period in 2019.
Lululemon doesn’t break out Mirror’s sales on a quarterly basis, but the company said in June that Mirror was on track to deliver between $250 million and $275 million in revenue in 2021. Mirror is expected to make its debut in Canada in the coming weeks.
Lululemon shares are up about 22% year to date. The company’s market cap is nearly $53 billion.

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The coronavirus delta variant ripped through a federal prison in Texas over the summer, infecting both the unvaccinated and fully vaccinated populations but few were hospitalized, according to a CDC report.
Among the 233 incarcerated people at the prison, which wasn’t named, 185, or 79%, were fully vaccinated against Covid19.
From July through August, 172 incarcerated people, or 74% of the federal prison’s population, were infected with Covid, according to the CDC.

A Sheriff’s deputy takes an employee’s temperature as at Las Colinas women’s Detention Facility in Santee, California on Wednesday, April22, 2020.
Sandy Huffaker | AFP | Getty Images

The fast-spreading delta variant ripped through a federal prison in Texas over the summer, infecting both the unvaccinated and fully vaccinated populations, but few were hospitalized, according to a report published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among the 233 incarcerated people at the prison, which wasn’t named, 185, or 79%, were fully vaccinated against Covid19, according to the new report, published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

From July through August, 172 incarcerated people, or 74% of the federal prison’s population, were infected with Covid, according to the CDC. The delta variant hit the unvaccinated harder, the agency said, infecting 39 out of the 42 prisoners who hadn’t gotten the shots. That compares with the 129 infections out of 185 fully vaccinated people.

CNBC Health & Science

Four people were hospitalized, three of whom were unvaccinated, and one person died, who was unvaccinated, according to the CDC.
The agency said the report demonstrates the potential for delta variant outbreaks in congregate settings, including correctional and detention facilities, even among places and populations with high vaccination coverage.
“Although attack rates, hospitalizations, and deaths were higher among unvaccinated than among vaccinated persons, duration of positive serial test results was similar for both groups,” the agency wrote in the report.
Vaccinating most of the U.S. population remains critical as the shots are highly effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths, the agency said.

The new report comes as federal health officials urge all Americans to get vaccinated and continue to wear masks indoors, especially in congregated settings, as the highly contagious delta variant spreads across the country.

The U.S. still has a dangerously high number of cases. The nation is reporting an average of more than 138,900 cases per day as of Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The country is reporting an average of more than 1,900 deaths per day, Johns Hopkins data shows.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden outlined a broad plan to boost Covid vaccination rates in the U.S., pressuring private employers to immunize their workforce as well as mandating the shots for federal employees, contractors and health-care workers.
The plan includes offering booster shots of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines to the general population.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Friday unanimously recommended Pfizer booster shots to people age 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans. A final decision from the agency is expected any day now.

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Walmart is partnering with large employers and Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand on a new initiative called the Black Community Innovation Coalition.
The new virtual-care program is aimed at combating health disparities among African American workers that taps into companies’ employee affinity groups.
Doctor on Demand believes its diverse workforce can help to bridge the divide for Black workers who may distrust the health system. One in 5 of its doctors are African American.

A patient at Walmart Health
Source: Walmart

Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, is joining with telemedicine firm Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand to launch a targeted program to tackle health disparities among African American workers.
“We have nearly 300,000 Black and African American (employees) and about 50% of our workforce is comprised of people of color, so we spend quite a bit of time thinking about how do we impact and how do we create change here,” said Lisa Woods, Walmart’s vice president of physical and emotional wellbeing.

Walmart is part of a group of large employers, including Target, Best Buy, Medtronic and State Farm, that are spearheading a new initiative called the Black Community Innovation Coalition in partnership with Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand. Combined, the group employs more than 500,000 African American workers.
“Obviously the events in the country over the last few years have hastened our desire to come up with a commercial grade solution,” said Owen Tripp, CEO of the newly merged Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand, noting that the Covid pandemic has put a spotlight on the serious consequences that can arise from Black health disparities.
The new program will use Grand Rounds’ health assistance platform to target outreach on specific health needs of African American workers. One of the initial programs they are looking at includes encouraging earlier maternity care for Black female employees; Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The goal is to create a culturally specific concierge service to engage workers of color on their health. It’s building on a similar program launched in 2020 to address the specific health need of LGBTQ workers.
“What we’re actually doing is integrating the health-care services, navigation and advocacy of the program, all in one place … through the employee resource groups,” explained Grand Rounds’ Dr. Ian Tong, executive leader of the Black Community Innovation Coalition.

The market for employer telemedicine plans has become increasingly competitive, with Amazon’s new Amazon Care service, industry leader Teladoc, hospitals and health insurers all vying to offer integrated virtual primary care services for large employers.
Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand believes its diverse pool of doctors can help bridge the divide for workers of color who may distrust the health system.
“Our physician practice is almost 50% Black, indigenous or people of color; 21% of our doctors are black, 20% of our doctors are also LGBTQ,” Tong notes.  
The new initiative aims to begin offering targeted services in 2022.

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