Member Info for Sangijuelas1

Voila is the name of the Ocado/Sobey's Partnership. Making progress as reported last month. (Empire is the Sobey's owner)

"Empire says it is focusing on digital and data and will continue with e-commerce expansion with Voilà, loyalty through Scene+ personalization, improved space productivity and the continued improvement of promotional optimization.

In the quarter that ended February 3, Empire reports that Voilà experienced a sales increase of 16% compared to the same quarter in the prior year.

According to third-party market data, Voilà’s national market share within the e-commerce channel continues to be higher versus the same quarter in the prior year. Medline adds that the total number of orders is increasing with strong customer retention rate."

https://strategyonline.ca/2024/03/15/empire-reports-q3-profit-boost-and-voila-sales-spike/

The main issue was them getting funded in a round led by SoftBank at an elevated valuation. I think MV actually dumped some stock at the time.

So with the VC blowout their assumed market cap was downgraded significantly but now they are getting rerated.

They say they have about 40mn customers now.

MV bought a fund a few weeks back at a big discount that had Revolut as a holding.

Imagine having a fight with the in store picker over the last pint of milk

Another issue with in store picking is that supermarkets are designed like mazes to maximise customer browsing time, so often not ideal layout for pickers.

Ocado reckon the industry average for picking a 60 item order is about an hour.

They say their in store fulfilment software can increase pick rates to 180 per hour.

Well it's a positive sign that things are on track. The hope is that Auchan in Romania and Portugal might also see a need for it in addition to Poland and Spain.

Not significant news though as there would have been an RNS.

Https://www.ocadogroup.com/media/newsroom/auchan-retail-poland-live-with-osp/

Using the In Store Fulfilment ahead of building first CFC

Schroders have increased their internal valuation of Revolut to 25.7bn dollars. So not so far off the 33bn now and a lot more than MV valued it so some addition to NAV maybe coming there.

Supermarkets are having to raise wages to attract staff. One of the reasons I believe those betting on low tech solutions like in store picking will struggle to scale up to meet online demand.

I also don't see how this model can work in the long run as I don't think it's feasible to mix shoppers with increasing numbers of pickers.

Ghost stores are another alternative but staff costs remain an issue not to mention ongoing recruitment hassles as they are going to be jobs with high staff turnover.

News today of growing numbers of people economically inactive (not looking for paid work). Numbers now higher than during peak Covid.

Meanwhile, Ocado wage challenges more likely with delivery drivers but they can continue to drive cost efficiencies with the robot picking.

I wonder how long an in store picker takes to pick a 50 items order. At a large supermarket in Spain staff went round on roller skates so maybe they could try that?

Now started recruiting for delivery drivers

Well you were saying it was underpriced at £11 a share this time 2 years ago so those predictions don't seem very effective!

Surely better to try and build a multi billion pound global business and fail, than spend days on end tapping furiously on a keyboard angrily denouncing them for trying?

I mean seriously, the other day you seemed to be rejoicing at the prospect of escalating Middle East hostilities pushing the SP down further.

50 items in 5 minutes not 10

The price to sales ratio of Autostore is 8.3.

And if you leave Ocado Retail out the price/revenue ratio for the solutions business is under 6.

Autostore market cap is 5.41bn dollars and Ocado today is 3.73bn dollars. They only grew revenue 11% against Ocado Solutions growth of 44%.

It could be said that Ocado Retail is one of the main drags on the SP. Autostore is worth more on slightly higher sales discounting Ocado Retail completely.

These analysts say they opted to not invest in Ocado because of Ocado Retail, which they say detracts from the robotics business.

However, this doesn't recognise that Ocado have learnt a lot by doing and can share their best practice with the likes of Kroger.

https://www.nanalyze.com/2024/03/autostore-revenue-growth-slows/

I'll informed idiot. The CEO is currently waiting for a vote on what payout he will get if the SP gets to £29 again

The only thing holding it up is FTSE 100 index buys.

If the FTSE drops then the index sells would add to the other sells (shorts?).

Saying that volume is quite high.

Do you even know the difference between the CEO and the Chair?

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity".

William Butler Yeats

They put it better here from March last year.

https://www.bailliegifford.com/en/ireland/professional-investor/insights/ic-article/2023-q1-ocado-s-robot-retail-revolution-10019145/

The strategic priority at the moment is getting more modules used in all the CFCs globally.

I don't think there's any M&S logos on the delivery vans.