If I may tack on one other observation, it's the sad attempts by companies to try to profit from the pandemic while looking altruistic:
https://twitter.com/nkozyra/status/1263106625335734273
It's a weird statement on where modern startup/retail is.
https://twitter.com/nkozyra/status/1263106625335734273
It's a weird statement on where modern startup/retail is.
In other words, my issue isn't with the mechanics of capitalism.
These are customized. I mean, if this were the only company selling facemasks, sure, $15 is a lot. But for somebody who wants to jazz up their facemask, maybe $15 makes sense. I'm not interested in that but maybe somebody is.
If burgers were a thing people could use in a pandemic to reduce transmission and they let affiliates put a design on the bun and upcharge to get a sliver of profit I think this might be a fair analog.
I dunno, I think this is a missed opportunity for some good pr, or at least not look like they're exploiting a crisis even further.
I did see the other day Chipolte is doing their own delivery service now which is awesome. Not sure why more places ditch Grubhub and Doordash and just have their own in house delivery service. It's so much cheaper than outsourcing to companies who've been gouging restaurants and the consumer.
Basically contract delivery services have a premium to begin with, to take the delivery business off your hands. If you have dramatically more orders per day, it can actually make sense to have your own delivery people; especially since your managers have all the time in the world to focus on delivery now that your dine-in is closed or restricted.
I may be the only person in my apartment complex ordering Chipotle for dinner tonight, but there are going to be several others ordering something.
Now, unlikely and difficult don't mean impossible but there's more to it than meets the eye.
Instead, it's a platform that incentivizes affiliates to markup face masks. Like, there's no value add here.