Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Amazon, FTC Reach $2.5 Billion Deal in Prime Subscription Case

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Amazon, FTC Reach $2.5 Billion Deal in Prime Subscription Case · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
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  Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
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  Speaker 2: Regulatory news coming out for our friends at Amazon, Amazon
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  Speaker 2: and the Federal Trade Commission. They reached the two and
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  Speaker 2: a half billion dollar deal in that prime subscription case.
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  Speaker 2: Let's bringing Spencer Soper. He is a Bloomberg Tech reporter.
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  Speaker 2: Spencer remind us of what this case is and then
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  Speaker 2: what the settlement does.
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  Speaker 3: Yees.
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  Speaker 4: So this this is about Amazon making, you know, kind
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  Speaker 4: of duping consumers into paying for Prime memberships. So the
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  Speaker 4: FTC alleged that, you know, they trick people into signing
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  Speaker 4: up through free trials and then made it difficult for
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  Speaker 4: them to.
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  Speaker 3: Cancel their Prime memberships.
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  Speaker 4: If they wanted to. Internally at Amazon, they even had
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  Speaker 4: a term for this cancelation process called the iliad, which
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  Speaker 4: kind of referred to Homer's epic odyssey. So there was
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  Speaker 4: some pretty damning findings about how Amazon handled this. The
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  Speaker 4: settlement is two point five billion dollars one billion dollars
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  Speaker 4: will go to the US Treasury, and one point five
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  Speaker 4: billion dollars is for consumer refunds. People will be refunded
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  Speaker 4: automatically if it was found they were affected by this case.
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  Speaker 4: And you're looking at about fifty bucks per affected consumer.
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  Speaker 4: So it's no huge windfall for consumers, and even for
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  Speaker 4: Amazon two and a half billion dollars. It's probably like
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  Speaker 4: a parking ticket for you and me. But it puts
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  Speaker 4: this thing to bed and prevents Amazon from going to
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  Speaker 4: a trial, which probably would have been pretty embarrassing.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so that's what they want to avoid.
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  Speaker 5: Just give us some context here about how valuable the
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  Speaker 5: Prime program Prime membership is to Amazon. I know that
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  Speaker 5: they don't always give a lot of numbers. The numbers
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  Speaker 5: that we do get have to do with how much
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  Speaker 5: it costs members, but in terms of the actual number
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  Speaker 5: of members and the amount that they spend, aside from
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  Speaker 5: knowing that they spend more than regular Amazon customers, we
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  Speaker 5: don't have a sense of how much they contribute to
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  Speaker 5: margins for instance.
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's a huge part of Amazon, and the financial
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  Speaker 4: nitty gritty I really don't have. But you know, you're
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  Speaker 4: talking huge penetration in the US. You know, more people
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  Speaker 4: are living a home that has a Prime membership that don't,
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  Speaker 4: you know, so they've got a majority of the country.
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  Speaker 4: And then to your point, if you have a Prime membership,
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  Speaker 4: you're paying Amazon one hundred and forty dollars a year
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  Speaker 4: or fifteen dollars a month, and so you're more likely
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  Speaker 4: to buy things on Amazon. And so Prime members spend
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  Speaker 4: about twice as much on Amazon as non Prime members.
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  Speaker 4: So it's a critical part of the success. It's also
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  Speaker 4: very stick. People tend not to cancel, which is why
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  Speaker 4: this uh uh. I don't see this as being a
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  Speaker 4: huge deal, this settlement. It's kind of like Amazon puts
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  Speaker 4: it to bed. But by and large, most people who
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  Speaker 4: join Prime are happy with it and stay with it.
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  Speaker 4: This was this was just kind of more of an
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  Speaker 4: embarrassment for them.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a I don't we find it
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  Speaker 3: a huge value in our home.
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  Speaker 2: President Trump is still speaking with President Edwin in their
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  Speaker 2: bilateral meeting there in the Oval Office of the White House.
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  Speaker 2: We will bring you headlines and the red headline just
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  Speaker 2: across the Bloomberg terminal here. According to President Trump, Trump,
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  Speaker 2: we want Arawan to stop buying oil from Russia. So
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  Speaker 2: that's consistent with what the President has said.
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  Speaker 3: And we'll bring you more reporting on that. Spencer. What's
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  Speaker 3: the what else is in front of Amazon? Just in
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  Speaker 3: terms of some of.
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  Speaker 2: The regulatory issues facing it, It's really hard to keep
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  Speaker 2: track of what's going on with some of these big
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  Speaker 2: tech companies and the regulative headwinds.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's a that's a good point and people
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  Speaker 4: should know this is this is an FTC case against Amazon.
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  Speaker 4: Was that was specifically against prime membership. There's still this
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  Speaker 4: whole question this big antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which is
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  Speaker 4: basically saying, you know what, this company is so big
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  Speaker 4: and has so much control and so much power that
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  Speaker 4: it's impossible for for other companies to compete. That's still
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  Speaker 4: that's still pending, and that's really the big threat to Amazon.
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  Speaker 4: And that's a holdover from from the Biden administration. So
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  Speaker 4: a lot in terms of the regulatory framework. The significance
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  Speaker 4: of this Prime settlement is largely like a lot of
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  Speaker 4: people are wondering, Okay, President Trump took office and there
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  Speaker 4: are a lot of these FTC cases pending against big
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  Speaker 4: tech companies like Amazon. You know, from from the Biden administration.
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  Speaker 4: What does the new administration mean for these cases? And
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  Speaker 4: so that that's really the big question here that we're
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  Speaker 4: still wondering about. Is Amazon was able to put this
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  Speaker 4: this kind of smaller prime investigation to and pay a
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  Speaker 4: little fine. But what is the you know, what is
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  Speaker 4: the outlook on these bigger cases that are that are
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  Speaker 4: more of an existential threat to Amazon?
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  Speaker 2: So what is kind of the what's the feeling out
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  Speaker 2: there and out there in the west there with the
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  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley up there in Seattle area.
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  Speaker 3: About this administration?
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  Speaker 2: Is this administration that can ultimately be continue the light
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  Speaker 2: regulatory touch that the tech industry is always enjoyed, or
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  Speaker 2: maybe they.
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  Speaker 3: Won't be able to deliver on that.
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  Speaker 2: How concerned is greater Technology, greater Silicon Valley about the
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  Speaker 2: regulatory environment.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think that they're all trying to very delicately
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  Speaker 4: figure out how to finesse their way through this administration.
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  Speaker 4: I guess I. I I think if there if, if, if
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  Speaker 4: Trump is anything, he's unpredictable. So I don't think that
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  Speaker 4: they take anything for granted. And uh, you know that
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  Speaker 4: that that is a good question, and I wish I
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  Speaker 4: had a nice simple answer for you.
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  Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: through Starbucks.
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  Speaker 5: And this is round two of layoffs under new CEO
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  Speaker 5: Brian Nicol. Although can we still call him new? No?
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  Speaker 3: I don't know. No, he's like one. He owns it.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, he owns it. So let's bring in Michael Halen,
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  Speaker 5: who owns the restaurant and news coverage for us here
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: at Bloomberg Intelligence. He is our senior research and food
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: service analyst.
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  Speaker 3: Michael.
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  Speaker 5: When you hear the news about Starbucks closing stores, cutting jobs,
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  Speaker 5: nine hundred jobs, one billion dollar restructuring effort, it feels
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  Speaker 5: like deja vous.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, but you know what, this was very clearly communicated
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  Speaker 6: to the street back in April on their fiscal call,
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  Speaker 6: Management said that, you know, we expect more restructuring charges.
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  Speaker 6: We're going to continue to evaluate our store base. Really,
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  Speaker 6: management wanted new ce CFO Kathy Smith to be involved
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  Speaker 6: in the process, so this was not a surprise. If
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  Speaker 6: we hear about some more store closures and restructuring, you know,
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  Speaker 6: than then maybe you'll see a bigger reaction in the stock.
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  Speaker 2: All right, A shout out to my Starbucks on Route
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  Speaker 2: thirty five in Wall Township, New Jersey. They do a
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  Speaker 2: great job, great folks, very efficient, very good Mike. What
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  Speaker 2: does this company need to do? What do they say
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  Speaker 2: is on their to do list to turn this company around?
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  Speaker 2: What are you looking for?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's more operations in marketing, and we're starting to
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  Speaker 6: see things kind of inflect here. We think fiscal twenty
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  Speaker 6: six should be a nice back bounce back year. So
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  Speaker 6: you know, first it's with the operations, right, so it's
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  Speaker 6: eliminating menu items, increasing labor, which baristas. We're very happy about,
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  Speaker 6: creating a smart queue for mobile orders, right, so, so
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  Speaker 6: the stores aren't as chaotic and baristas aren't serving you know,
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  Speaker 6: mobile orders for somebody thirty miles away before helping someone
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  Speaker 6: inside the store. And then service standards, right, they're rolling
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  Speaker 6: out these green Apron service standards this year. It's a
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  Speaker 6: big investment on training and really nailing the consumer experience
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  Speaker 6: in the store. And then from there it's the marketing
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  Speaker 6: and marketing seems to be working. They pulled back on
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  Speaker 6: discounts and what they're doing is more marketing. You'll see
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  Speaker 6: some TV ads right. They're doing more digital marketing, and
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  Speaker 6: we think that's a smart move. It seems to be
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  Speaker 6: paying early dividends. Starbucks non rewards member transactions are up.
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  Speaker 6: Non discounted rewards members transactions are up, and we think
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  Speaker 6: these are a sign that sales are going to inflect
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  Speaker 6: higher in the coming months.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, but this is taking a while. Paul and I
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  Speaker 5: were just saying that Brian Nickel owns this. Now he's
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  Speaker 5: been CEO for a year and they're still in turnaround mode.
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  Speaker 5: They're still in kind of like let's figure out our
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  Speaker 5: path forward. Investors, please be patient. Are investor is going
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  Speaker 5: to continue to be patient for another six months to
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  Speaker 5: one year.
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  Speaker 6: I don't think they're going to be patient for six
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  Speaker 6: months to one year In terms of the stock price.
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  Speaker 6: I think Brian Nichols job is very much safe. You know,
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  Speaker 6: you can't turn around an aircraft carrier on a dime, right,
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  Speaker 6: This is a massive organization. Eighteen thousand stores just here
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  Speaker 6: in North America, over forty thousand globally. So yes, this
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  Speaker 6: is taking longer than a lot anticipated, you know, myself included.
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  Speaker 6: You know, our investor is going to be happy if
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  Speaker 6: they don't see same store sales inflect here in the
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  Speaker 6: first quarter of fiscal twenty six. No, they're not going
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  Speaker 6: to be happy, and you're going to see it reflected
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  Speaker 6: in the share price, right. So, yeah, I mean I
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  Speaker 6: think they're they're making the right moves. This has been
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  Speaker 6: a longer turnaround than most had expected. But you know,
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  Speaker 6: I think Brian Nichols pressing all the right buttons right now.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just got back from some vacation time in Italy.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think I saw too many Starbucks is in Italy.
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  Speaker 5: I think they have a Starbucks reserve somewhere. It looks
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  Speaker 5: different than.
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  Speaker 3: The Starbucks store, all right.
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  Speaker 2: So, Mike, I mean you said they have forty thousand
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  Speaker 2: stores on this planet.
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  Speaker 3: Is that enough for it? Are they still going to
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  Speaker 3: be putting more out there?
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  Speaker 6: They're still going to be building, you know, I think
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  Speaker 6: they need to. You know, they're going to have to
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  Speaker 6: nail this US operation and remodel, and they're going to
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  Speaker 6: spend a little bit less on building stores in the
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  Speaker 6: US a little bit more on renovating them. Okay, and
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  Speaker 6: then China. They really want to get that market nailed
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  Speaker 6: before they accelerate accelerate growth. So those are their two
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  Speaker 6: main markets for growth. They've been the company's to major
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  Speaker 6: markets for growth for growth for.
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  Speaker 3: A long time.
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  Speaker 6: But management's doing the right thing. They pulled back on
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  Speaker 6: growth to kind of nail the operations marketing. Once they
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  Speaker 6: get same star sales and traffic trending back up strongly again,
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  Speaker 6: you'll see reaccelerate development.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarcklay, and Android
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Boy, so big news today if you're in the used
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: car business. Carmacks, Richmond, Virginia based company, stock down twenty
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: percent today. Some disappointing results and guidance here. Let's get
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the bottom line here, what's going on? Steve Mann, Bloomberg Intelligence,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Global Autos and Industrials Research Channels joins us here. Steve
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: just tell us what's going on with CarMax is stock
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  Speaker 2: down twenty percent today.
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  Speaker 3: What's the news.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, significantly down today for a couple of reason. One
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: is the auto sales used car sales wasn't as good
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: as expected in the second quarter. And then second, it's
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: really on the uh right down on some of their loans.
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: And the first item is, actually it's not that surprising
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: because there's been a lot of poll for demand. Remember
• 12:12
  Speaker 7: in the first quarter when Trump announced uh these taroffs
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: on autos, a lot of the consumers actually went ahead
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: and bought by a lot of cars, uh in you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: concern that prices will go up. So the pull for
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: demand really dent it second quarter sales.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Then talk to us about the other side of the equation,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: kind of the rate office. Some of these auto loans
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: are is that ax?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Uh?
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  Speaker 7: Well, I mean this is because this is on the
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: back of the Tricolor Holdings bankruptcy if you remember, you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 7: they actually went bankrupt because they wrote a lot of
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: subprime loans that potentially undocumented the allegedly undocumented UH buyers.
• 12:57
  Speaker 7: But this seems to be more of a unique for
• 13:00
  Speaker 7: tri Color Holdings. So the right down is a little
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: bit kind of special given the coincidence that's with the tricolor.
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: But it's not really out of the ordinary for these
• 13:16
  Speaker 7: auto companies to actually write down some of the loans.
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: The interest rate has been high, right, I think the
• 13:22
  Speaker 7: bright spot now is that the interest rates are coming down,
• 13:26
  Speaker 7: so we don't actually see that is an industry issue,
• 13:30
  Speaker 7: but it does cost for concern. It's not a red flag,
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: I would say, it's more of a yellow yellow light,
• 13:35
  Speaker 7: yellow flag.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Talk to us, just let's step back a little bit.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Talk to us about where we are in the auto
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: business with just how many cars are being produced these
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: days in the US and what does that mean for
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  Speaker 2: the used car market, like the car Maxes of the world.
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  Speaker 7: Where are we today, Yeah, I mean it's about the
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  Speaker 7: annual sales in the auto industry today. In the US
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  Speaker 7: it's around sixteen million, and if you include Canada, Mexico
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  Speaker 7: is around eighteen nineteen million. The used car markets actually
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  Speaker 7: bigger than the new car market. Is very vibrant market.
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  Speaker 3: And look, it's.
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  Speaker 7: It's an interesting market. There are a lot of used
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  Speaker 7: cars that's coming back from leases. I remember during the
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: COVID era, you know, we had quite a bit of
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: a vehicle sales, you know, and prices were really high
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: and so there's quite a few used car used cars
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  Speaker 7: coming back in the market, and that's impacting prices as well.
• 14:39
  Speaker 7: So even with lower prices, used car sales was down
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  Speaker 7: the second quarter, but then again it's a function of
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: the pre buy that happened in the first quarter. So
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: I actually feel that we're probably near the trough, given
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: that interest rates are actually coming down.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we talked about this SAR, the season
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: adjusted rate of sixteen million. I remember back in the day,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: seventeen seventeen million was kind of the norm. Here, is
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: this a new lower normal level of production from the
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: US OEMs.
• 15:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you're absolutely right. We haven't really gotten back to
• 15:14
  Speaker 7: the pre COVID days of you know, seventeen million stars,
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: but I think this is a new normal of sixteen million. Look,
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: the average price for a vehicle has actually gone up
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: quite a bit today. It's about forty eight thousand dollars
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: per vehicle. You know, before COVID, I think we were
• 15:35
  Speaker 7: you know, around forty so significant increase since then. So
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: there is some concerns about affordability. You've seen financing terms
• 15:46
  Speaker 7: being extended. Car buyers actually can get loans for seventy
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: two month loans up to eighty four months loans just
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: to make the vehicles more affordable. So I do believe
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: this is a new normal. I don't see prices coming
• 16:02
  Speaker 7: back down. Prices don't usually come back down once they
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: go once they're increased. So I think this is going
• 16:09
  Speaker 7: to be the new normal.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So does that mean people are staying in their cars
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: longer because the affordability of getting a new car is
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: that much more difficult.
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a great question. I think they are going
• 16:23
  Speaker 7: to stay in their cars a little bit longer. Look,
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: the cars today are much more reliable, much more durable
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: than they have in the past, so they do last
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: a little bit longer. And if you throw in evs right, EV's,
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: it's probably around six, you know, four or five percent
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: of the total fleet today. Those you know require those
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: lasts also a lot longer with less moving parts. So
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: what who really benefits are actually the aftermarket retailers like
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: O'Reilly and AutoZone. You know, as people keep their cars
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: a little bit longer, they were gonna do probably gonna
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: either you go get it repaired by the dealer or
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: the mom and pop shop, or they do it themselves.
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