The Business And Technology Network

Investors reportedly expect increased competition in the grocery sector after Amazon’s announcement Tuesday (April 23) of a new grocery delivery subscription benefit.

Walmart and Kroger shares declined 1.8% and 2.3%, respectively, Tuesday, in moves that UBS analyst Michael Lasser said showed that investors interpret Amazon’s announcement as a sign of greater competition, Seeking Alpha reported Wednesday (April 24).

The new Amazon program offers a delivery subscription benefit in the United States for Prime members and customers using an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card, according to the report.

“The reality is that all the leading players have been competing intensely for some time for a greater share of online grocery spend,” Lasser wrote in a Tuesday note, per the report.

Amazon’s new program, which is launching in more than 3,500 locations around the U.S., offers unlimited grocery deliveries on orders of $35 at $9.99 per month for Prime members and $4.99 per month for customers with a registered EBT card.

It encompasses orders from Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, and a variety of other grocery stores and specialty retailers.

“Our goal is to build a best-in-class grocery shopping experience — whether shopping in-store or online — where Amazon is the first choice for selection, value and convenience,” Tony Hoggett, senior vice president of worldwide grocery stores at Amazon, said in a press release announcing the program’s launch.

While Amazon is trying to win over grocery shoppers by making its offering more accessible in terms of price, DoorDash is trying to do so in terms of geographic availability, PYMNTS reported Tuesday.

DoorDash announced Tuesday that it has added both Wakefern Food Corp.’s 365 locations and five new West Coast grocers to its platform, amounting to more than 100 stores.

“DoorDash strives to be a modern-day one-stop-shop that offers an efficient way to get everything needed for tomorrow’s breakfast, this weekend’s dinner party or today’s missing lunch,” Tom Pickett, chief revenue officer at DoorDash, said in a press release announcing these additions.

In another recent development in this space, Grubhub said April 18 that it is expanding its grocery presence via a partnership with online marketplace Mercato.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

The post Walmart Investors Expect Stiffer Competition in Grocery Sector From Amazon appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

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Block ecosystems Square and Cash App have begun rolling out a feature that will allow eligible Square sellers to automatically convert a portion of their daily sales to bitcoin with Cash App.

The rollout of this new Bitcoin Conversions feature began Wednesday (April 24), Block said in an email to PYMNTS.

“Block believes that bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for people around the world, including business owners, to participate in a global monetary system,” the company said in the email.

“According to direct feedback from Square sellers, many are interested in bitcoin and believe it presents a wide range of use cases, such as long-term savings and diversifying their businesses’ holdings,” the email said.

With Bitcoin Conversions, eligible Square sellers in the United States have the option to allocate between 1% and 10% of their daily sales from their Square seller account to be transferred to their personal Cash App account, according to the release.

When in the Cash App account, the funds will be automatically used to purchase bitcoin at the end of each day, the release said. Sellers will pay a flat 1% fee for each of these conversions.

Account holders can then choose to hold, send, sell or manage the bitcoin as they see fit, per the release.

Bitcoin Conversions will be made available to all eligible Square sellers across the U.S. in the coming months, according to the release. It will not be available to New York-based sellers.

“This collaboration joins a number of Block ecosystem integrations for bitcoin, providing new ways for individuals, developers and now sellers to participate in a digital global monetary system,” the press release said.

In another recent development in this space, Block said in December 2023 that it launched its self-custody bitcoin wallet Bitkey in 95 countries.

The wallet is designed to widen access to self-custody by using a design that doesn’t require users to remember long passwords or seed phrases, the company said at the time. Rather, Bitkey uses three keys to secure bitcoin, with any two of them needed to move coins or approve other security-related functions.

The post Square and Cash App Collaborate on Bitcoin Conversions for Sellers appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Uber for Business has designed a new tool to make it easier for executive assistants (EAs) to arrange corporate travel. 

The company’s new delegate profiles enable EAs to manage ground transportation for executives on their behalf, Uber for Business said in a Wednesday (April 24) press release.

With a delegate profile, EAs can request on-demand premium rides or reserve trips in advance for executives with a few clicks, see the cost upfront, and gain real-time trip visibility and communication so they can monitor rides and communicate with the driver via a three-way intercom, according to the release.

The EAs can also manage ground transportation for multiple executives at once and integrate Uber for Business directly into an expensing platform, the release said.

With the delegate profile, the Uber experience remains familiar, so EAs can manage travel from a desk or on the go with the experience they already know, per the release.

“Booking executive travel doesn’t always come easy for EAs,” the release said. “It may require thorough research into car services, time-consuming back-and-forths for quotes and reservations, and cumbersome booking processes that don’t always allow for last-minute changes. And that’s just the booking experience — expensing these trips afterwards is a whole other story, especially for EAs managing multiple executives at once.”

“Now, with delegate profiles, EAs will be able to facilitate a smooth travel experience in available markets,” the release said.

In another recent update to the platform, Uber for Business said in December that it integrated with expense management providers Brex and Ramp. With these integrations, receipt matching for Uber rides and meals are automated, helping companies simplify expenses and save time.

In June, the company launched Uber Business Comfort, a ride type that is exclusive to business travelers and includes priority pickup, newer cars, more legroom, highly rated drivers and custom preferences. Travelers using Uber Business Comfort also have access to a designated, 24/7 personalized support service.

The company said in December that the Uber for Business platform is used by more than 200,000 companies to provide rides and meals to employees, customers and guests. 

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.

The post Uber for Business Adds ‘Delegate Profiles’ for Executive Assistants appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

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As consumers look to buy clothing online, PYMNTS Intelligence research reveals that digital shoppers are increasingly turning to Amazon to meet their apparel needs.

By the Numbers

The PYMNTS Intelligence study “Whole Paycheck Report: New Consumer Spend Data Finds Amazon Way Ahead of Walmart” estimates each of the two retailers’ market shares in various categories based on years of earnings reports in conjunction with national data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis.

According to supplemental research from the study, as of Q4 2023, for the first time, consumers bought more than half of the apparel the purchased online from Amazon. The online retail giant’s share of eCommerce consumer clothing spending rose to 51.5%, from 47.9% the previous quarter.

A Deeper Dive

Amazon’s success gaining share in the category is especially key, given how consumers prioritize clothing purchases even in times of economic distress. PYMNTS Intelligence’s “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report: The Nonessential Spending Deep Dive Edition” finds that, among the 7 in 10 retail shoppers who buy “nice-to-have” items at least sometimes, clothing is the most common splurge.

Plus, higher-income consumers spend more of their paycheck on this retail category, according to the “Why One-Third of High Earners Live Paycheck to Paycheck” edition of the New Reality Check series. The study found that those who earn more than $200,000 a year spend the greatest portion of their personal income on clothing, accessories and personal care items — 8.5%, versus the population-wide 7.2%. Moreover, consumers who earn more than $100,000 a year were the likeliest to say that clothing and personal care had a high or very high impact on their budget in the last 12 months.

“We continue to have the broadest retail selection, with hundreds of millions of products available, tens of millions added last year alone, and several premium brands starting to list on Amazon (e.g. Coach, Victoria’s Secret, Pit Viper, Martha Stewart, Clinique, Lancôme, and Urban Decay),” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told investors in his recent 2023 Letter to Shareholders.

The post Online Shoppers Are Starting to See Amazon as a Fashion Destination appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

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Air travel is a complicated business — and those complications can get passed down to travelers.

From extended delays when waiting for refunds after abrupt flight cancellations, to spending hours and even days haggling with airline customer service staff, U.S. consumer frustrations with the airline industry’s take-it-or-leave-it way of doing business have recently started to boil over.

Wednesday (April 24) the Biden-Harris administration announced a new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) final rule requiring airlines to promptly provide passengers with automatic cash refunds when owed.

Per a statement, the new rule makes it easy for passengers to obtain refunds when airlines cancel or significantly change their flights, significantly delay their checked bags, or fail to provide the extra services they purchased.

“Passengers deserve to know upfront what costs they are facing and should get their money back when an airline owes them — without having to ask,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Today’s announcements will require airlines to both provide passengers better information about costs before ticket purchase, and promptly provide cash refunds to passengers when they are owed — not only saving passengers time and money, but also preventing headaches.”

The new mandate is set to transform the landscape of air travel, ensuring that passengers are no longer left in limbo when their travel plans are abruptly altered. After all, flight cancellations are enough of an inconvenience that customers shouldn’t also have to jump through hoops to be appropriately compensated for their troubles.

But, importantly, at the center of the DOT’s new rule is payments — namely, disbursements. And the rule’s requirements come into effect at a time when the business-to-consumer (B2C) payments landscape is being automated and digitized.

Read more: Airlines’ Descent Into Logistical Chaos Puts Focus on Refund Solutions

Seamless Refunds Start With Seamless Payments

Since 2021 alone, airlines have returned more than $3 billion in refunds and reimbursements owed to airline passengers, per the DOT.

Wednesday’s final rule creates more certainty for consumers around the specific circumstances in which airlines must provide them with refunds. Prior to the rule, airlines were able to set their own refund standards which resulted in a highly fragmented landscape where refund policies differed from airline to airline and left passengers facing an opaque and varied process when seeking compensation for travel disruptions and cancellations. 

The rule applies not only to cash refunds but also to other forms of compensation, such as travel vouchers and frequent flyer miles, to ensure that passengers have a choice in how they are compensated.

“Not only do you have a whole range of fare rules and ticket types, but you have various refund policies, including nonrefundable or partial refund policies that you have to manage, you have a lot of government legislation, and on top of it all, you have a very complex payment ecosystem, meaning a lot of forms of payment, not just cards, but also things like Apple Pay and so on,” explained Kristian Gjerding, CEO of payment orchestration platform Cellpoint Digital, to PYMNTS.

“From the consumer perspective, they would probably like to see a refund of cash fast into the form of payment that they used,” he added.

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Automatic Refunds for Canceled Flights

And PYMNTS Intelligence has found consumers want their money quickly when it comes to refunds or other disbursements. Data in the report “Merchant Refund Policies: Keeping Travel and Entertainment on Track” showed that seamless, easy-to-use cancellation and refund policies are key to delivering a positive customer experience.

The final DOT rule requires airline refunds to be automatic (passengers shouldn’t have to request them), prompt (issued within seven business days of refunds becoming due for credit card purchases and 20 calendar days for other payment methods), issued in either cash or the original payment method, and in the full amount (refunds must include all government-imposed taxes and fees and airline-imposed fees).

The rule bars airlines from substituting vouchers, travel credits, or other forms of compensation unless the passenger affirmatively chooses to accept alternative compensation. 

The “significant changes” requiring airlines to issue refunds under the rule include: departure or arrival times that are more than three hours domestically and six hours internationally; departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or connections at different airports or flights on different planes that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability.

In addition to finalizing the rules to require automatic refunds and protect against surprise fees, DOT is also pursuing rulemakings that would make passenger compensation and amenities mandatory so that travelers are taken care of when airlines cause flight delays or cancellations, as well as a family seating junk fee ban proposal.

As for how airlines will manage the technical and payments infrastructure lifts necessary to comply with the new rule and any ones upcoming, that remains to be seen — and is sure to be something the payments landscape will keep its eyes on.

The post New Airline Refund Requirements Put Spotlight on B2C Payments  appeared first on PYMNTS.com.