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Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

markets.businessinsider.com

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Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#121

Post by ummonk »

jerkstate wrote: post #52
mawburn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK with paying a non-trivial premium to have a lot of menu planning and shopping be handled by someone else This is the one I've never been able to get past. For what these services cost, I can have someone else prepare my meal that will taste just as good or better. Why would I not do that? I get if you're trying to learn to cook or something like that, but that only sounds like a temporary problem.

$10 per serving is essentially fast food prices in the bay area - you can't really get a healthy meal with meat and vegetables. My family used Blue Apron for a while when we first had kids, and it was great for our lifestyle. We did move on to a service that optimizes grocery shopping so we can buy ingredients for a week's worth of meals in one shopping trip. Edit: for those who asked, I am using thefresh20 now. It's…

Eh what? I can eat out at a restaurant for like $15 with tax and tip, and the packed food usually lasts me an additional meal. I avoid pricey restaurants though.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#122

Post by chad_strategic »

naravara wrote: post #113
chad_strategic wrote: post #6

After 10 years of marriage, my wife thought it would be helpful for me to start cooking, as she was getting stressed out with our 2 years old. We used Blue Apron as the starting point. I can't tell you how much time we save in planning meals and trips to the store. My wife doesn't have nag me about what I what I want for the week's dinner. The quality of the food and the time saved is well worth the price. I know the…

>I suspect Blue Apron will survive as it will probably be taken over or bought out. It's kinda the leader of the pack and the market will eventually consolidate. It also helps that I might have helped I bought about $1000 discounted gift cards at Costco. I'm not so sure. Even most people I know who have tried Blue Apron tend to either regress back to not cooking or they "graduate" to buying their own ingredients and…

Well... that's what makes a market... Differing opinions.

I will probably pick up some stock in the next few months. Because I will put my money where my mouth is. (pun intended)

They are changing their business strategies and growing in different ways. (They sell prepackaged food in Costco in California).

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#123

Post by Waterluvian »

chad_strategic wrote: post #6

After 10 years of marriage, my wife thought it would be helpful for me to start cooking, as she was getting stressed out with our 2 years old. We used Blue Apron as the starting point. I can't tell you how much time we save in planning meals and trips to the store. My wife doesn't have nag me about what I what I want for the week's dinner. The quality of the food and the time saved is well worth the price. I know the…

So my local grocery store chain is offering what blue apron does, except it's just their in house butchers and whatnot preparing the ingredients. Then you buy the kits the way you would groceries: off the shelf or online for pickup.

I'm not sure blue apron has any magic that can't be reproduced by everyone else.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#124

Post by ghaff »

pfranz wrote: post #78
tigershark wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really surprised... you don’t have any online grocery shopping in US? I have been buying groceries only online for years and I wouldn’t definitely call work to click a couple times more on the ingredients that you need for some meal. If you are particularly lazy you can even create shopping lists for every meal that you need and add all of them with a click.

What countries have widespread online grocery shopping? I've seen it advertised a bit in the US (more and more recently), but haven't seen it gain a strong foothold yet. I've had some friends that used Amazon Fresh. I've used it once or twice, but wasn't confident it was price competitive and also didn't want to wait the day or two when I could just pick it up for dinner tonight. For me it's just an expectation and f…

Online grocery delivery is fairly widespread in the US at least in the general vicinity of urban areas. I've had Peapod available for over ten years in the Northeast even though I'm far enough out of Boston that I don't get most of the delivery service things.

However, the only time I've used it was when I had a broken foot and, while I could drive to the store or pick up one or two things, doing a grocery shopping was difficult.

At least at the time, they'd invariably be out of something I needed for a recipe and/or they'd make substitutions that weren't really what I would have wanted. Quality was "OK." Normally, it's not a big deal for me to go to the store and I just didn't love the service in general.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#125

Post by wgerard »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #100
wgerard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a reverse split just to meet the share price requirements is generally viewed as a sign the company is spiraling out of control (i.e. investors will continue selling to cut their losses). I don't have the numbers offhand, but I would wager a large sum that companies in trouble doing reverse splits just to meet listing requirements almost always continue tumbling downwards. For a recent example, see Helios and M…

Perhaps not spiraling but yes it isn't exactly a healthy sign either. It happened a lot during the dot com fallout :-) and even Sun did a reverse split 3:1 on its way out of existence. Literally though it is 'price neutral' and serves to meet investor needs (like to stay listed on an exchange) just as 'forward splits' are done, in part, to enable institutional investors to own fractions that are compatible with their…

> even Sun did a reverse split 3:1 on its way out of existence

"on its way out of existence" being the operative phrase there :).

Either way, Sun had been a public company for 20 years at that point - Blue Apron's been one for a year. Far more reason to believe that Sun could turn it around (and AIG and similar companies), which is why it works for them and not for Blue Apron.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#126

Post by bluGill »

chrisseaton wrote: post #61
SkyPuncher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can eat it for lunch the next day.

If you want two meals why not get two meals instead of expecting one meal to provide two - doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation to me.

Because the second meal is going to be eaten at work: I only have a microwave, they frown on anything sharper than a butter knife, and my time is limited. There are lots of options that can work; but they compromise taste, quality, speed, price, or time - often all of the above. (It need not be - but good luck finding exceptions). Making a little extra and bringing it in latter is useful.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#127

Post by ghaff »

maxxxxx wrote: post #66
fetus8 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are preparing, mixing, cutting and cooking everything yourself. You're given the raw ingredients just like you'd buy yourself at the grocery store and given an easy to follow recipe to do everything yourself. If you've never cooked before, you are definitely in their target demographic. The recipes are generally simple enough and explained well enough that it would teach you the basic cooking skills you lack.

It sounds like grocery stores could provide that service pretty easily now that they have online shopping. Send them a recipe and they put the ingredients into a shopping bag ready to go.

To some degree. The portions the meal kits ship for things like spices are only what's needed for the recipe. For people who don't have a well-stocked larder that's probably one of the big advantages of these kits.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#128

Post by Retric »

naravara wrote: post #113
chad_strategic wrote: post #6

After 10 years of marriage, my wife thought it would be helpful for me to start cooking, as she was getting stressed out with our 2 years old. We used Blue Apron as the starting point. I can't tell you how much time we save in planning meals and trips to the store. My wife doesn't have nag me about what I what I want for the week's dinner. The quality of the food and the time saved is well worth the price. I know the…

>I suspect Blue Apron will survive as it will probably be taken over or bought out. It's kinda the leader of the pack and the market will eventually consolidate. It also helps that I might have helped I bought about $1000 discounted gift cards at Costco. I'm not so sure. Even most people I know who have tried Blue Apron tend to either regress back to not cooking or they "graduate" to buying their own ingredients and…

As long as you have low customer acquisition costs you can still have a large stable business like this. Look at huggies diapers, some kids spend a lot longer in diapers than others but generally it’s a short but profitable window.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#129

Post by bduerst »

naravara wrote: post #113
chad_strategic wrote: post #6

After 10 years of marriage, my wife thought it would be helpful for me to start cooking, as she was getting stressed out with our 2 years old. We used Blue Apron as the starting point. I can't tell you how much time we save in planning meals and trips to the store. My wife doesn't have nag me about what I what I want for the week's dinner. The quality of the food and the time saved is well worth the price. I know the…

>I suspect Blue Apron will survive as it will probably be taken over or bought out. It's kinda the leader of the pack and the market will eventually consolidate. It also helps that I might have helped I bought about $1000 discounted gift cards at Costco. I'm not so sure. Even most people I know who have tried Blue Apron tend to either regress back to not cooking or they "graduate" to buying their own ingredients and…

Yep - I'm in the latter. Did Blue Apron for about 9 months and then "graduated" to making my own recipes based on my experience cooking with them. Just last night I made gnocchi with a gorgonzola cream sauce.

It's a great way to learn how to cook, and though I cancelled a while ago, I do sometimes miss their precise portioning. That is probably Blue Apron's best long-term value for customers: accurate grocery delivery.

Re: Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time

#130

Post by jerkstate »

ummonk wrote: post #121
jerkstate wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 per serving is essentially fast food prices in the bay area - you can't really get a healthy meal with meat and vegetables. My family used Blue Apron for a while when we first had kids, and it was great for our lifestyle. We did move on to a service that optimizes grocery shopping so we can buy ingredients for a week's worth of meals in one shopping trip. Edit: for those who asked, I am using thefresh20 now. It's…

Eh what? I can eat out at a restaurant for like $15 with tax and tip, and the packed food usually lasts me an additional meal. I avoid pricey restaurants though.

Implying that $10 and $15 are approximately the same is telling. I'm talking about 6 to 40 person-meals per week for a family. (FWIW $10 per person-meal from blue apron is at the high end of home cooking, unless you are cooking high end ingredients like fancy fish or steak or including wine)
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