Blue Apron Update
Following Blue Apron’s earnings call on February 13, 2018, we used our Query tool to analyze market share shifts among the biggest meal kit players and looked at Blue Apron’s growth and average ticket for new and repeat customers.
- Market share may have bottomed out at ~36%
- New customer acquisition continues to be costly
- Retention growth is no longer in free fall
Market share may have bottomed out at ~36%: APRN had been consistently bleeding share, largely to Home Chef and Hello Fresh, but it appears share may be stabilizing (see dotted line below).
On last week’s call (2/13/18), management expressed they believe they can steal back share from competitors by pulling the right marketing levers in 2018. While too early to tell, we’ll be monitoring the dynamic.
Blue Apron’s customer acquisition continues to be costly: On marketing, management also stated they have been experimenting with different strategies. Sharing below an updated analysis of ticket growth by customer type. We’ve observed discounting on new orders again (following their first box discount strategy from mid-2016 to early 2017) and also potentially on repeat orders more recently.
Blue Apron’s retention growth is no longer in free fall: It appears some of their marketing efforts at the end of 2017 did help stabilize new customer growth. Per below, it appears new customers while still negative may be accelerating, and repeat customer growth has flattened over the last couple of months.
