Dive Brief:
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Thanks to an agreement announced Wednesday, Amazon has an opportunity to take a 2% stake in Dutch restaurant delivery company Just Eat Takeaway.com, which runs Grubhub and other food delivery operations in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Europe and elsewhere.
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That could grow to 15%, “subject to the satisfaction of certain performance conditions, principally the number of new consumers delivered through the commercial agreement,” according to a Just Eat Takeaway press release.
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As part of the newly inked partnership, Amazon as of Wednesday is offering U.S. Prime members a free year-long Grubhub+ membership, with no delivery fees on orders over $12, according to press releases from both companies.
Dive Insight:
Grubhub has struggled to gain traction in a fiercely competitive food delivery market, and Just Eat Takeaway has been eager to sell the service, just two years after acquiring it. As it announced its new partnership with Amazon, the company reiterated that it “continues to actively explore the partial or full sale of Grubhub.”
It’s unclear whether the e-commerce giant would buy a stake of any size in what has been a money-losing enterprise. Orders have also tapered off as consumers head back to dine in restaurants themselves and, at the same time, rein in their spending as gas and groceries more quickly empty their wallets. In the first quarter, Just Eat Takeaway’s order growth in North America fell 5% from the previous quarter to 89.6 million orders.
But the tie-up does give existing and prospective Prime members in the U.S. a new perk just ahead of Amazon’s midsummer Prime Day sales event. Prime members in more than 4,000 cities in the U.S., amounting to “hundreds of thousands of restaurants across the country,” can use their new Grubhub membership, Amazon said.
If there’s a boost from that, it may be quite helpful, given that interest in Prime Day was already waning last year as more retailers encroached on the made-up sales holiday. This year inflation has also introduced a new layer of uncertainty: Shoppers in search of deals could be attracted to the sale, but they’re also being extra cautious about discretionary spending.
Amazon is piling on other special perks for Prime Day as well, per its release. Only Prime members can access the sale or its perks, including a minute-long sneak peek of its upcoming “The Lord of the Rings” television series, deals tied to the launch of Thursday Night Football and special experiences for gamers ahead of a battle featuring MrBeast and Ninja.
