A comment on SA:
˝ If I were to ship two big bags of dog food with UPS for next day delivery, it would cost me over $100. And Chewy offers it "for free". We already know Chewy is losing money on the deal. But it not plausible that UPS is providing this service at break-even or better. If they were, then Chewy would be losing much more money.
UPS is scared to death of how quickly Amazon is building out its own transportation system that DOES NOT INCLUDE UPS or Fedex in the long run. And that "long run" may be only a couple of years away. UPS is doing some things that seem insane as a result. They are in panic and willing to do just about anything to tie up deals with anybody not names Amazon.
And this means that they are jacking up the rates on the individual that has no leverage. It is the individual and small business that really gets screwed in this Clash of the Titans.
Don't get me wrong. I like Chewy. Ignoring the artificial pricing, they provide good service, but it is a commodity so I won't use it much once the market forces them to stop losing money. I don't see them heading for any real economy of scale or critical mass that would make this business model work. I think it is easy to make a fundamental error, assuming that "brick and mortar" is always more expensive than Internet distribution. It is actually pretty efficient to ship semi-loads of dog and cat food to retail shops that generally have pretty low overhead. And also, don't ignore the social aspect of pet stores. Lots of people enjoy hanging out there and putting their pets on parade. This is a business where many of the customers are happy to go to the store to puck up the commodities, and that is 10x more cost effective than hiring a company to drive it to every single customer's door.˝
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4292988-chewy-fine-even-sentiment