New Adventures Edition: Chase, Walmart And Facebook

After what seems like a summer that didn’t quite know when to quit — despite the ubiquitous emergence of pumpkin spice flavored things — fall seems to have actually arrived. Temperatures are dropping, leaves are turning and sweaters are finally being freed from their drawers.

And, as the season of transition finally gets its act into gear, it seemed fitting this week to honor all the payments and commerce players that are trying new things as they, too, transition by expanding past their traditional boundaries.

And while there were many candidates this week — Amazon, Visa, American Express, Mastercard and Venmo all could have made the cut — we decided to snap up some plays and players that may have caught many by surprise.

Chase Buys WePay

JPMorgan Chase announced this week that it will acquire payments platform player WePay, as Chase makes a serious move into building a payments ecosystem for platform developers, marketplaces and SMBs. The acquisition will mesh WePay’s ability to integrate payments functionality into software with Chase’s global reach, broad-based small business product portfolio and network of 4 million small businesses.

Currently, WePay counts GoFundMe, Infusionsoft and Constant Contact as clients.

WePay Co-Founder and CEO Bill Clerico told Karen Webster in a recent interview that the combination of WePay and Chase will “serve small businesses even better,” also viewing Chase’s brick-and-mortar presence as an important “springboard” for making that possible.

“You can see, in the future, a world where we have a number of software products and software partnerships on one side and a number of small business customers on the other side, and a marketplace, if you will, that helps match firms to the software that will best help them,” Clerico said.

Chase will keep WePay as a standalone company, while giving it access to Chase assets — including “wrapping” WePay’s technology around Chase’s “world-class” cybersecurity capabilities.

Its short-term plans include doubling the size of the team in the next year, with every existing employee staying on.

“WePay is going to feel like the best-funded FinTech in the Valley — overnight,” Chase’s CEO of commerce solutions, Matt Kane, told Webster.

WePay and the firm’s staff will serve as JPMorgan’s Silicon Valley payments innovation incubator.

Walmart on the Hunt for More Acquisitions

Is there ever such a thing as too many acquisitions?

As of late, the answer from Team Walmart seems to be no, as 2017 has seen a spate of big buys from the nation’s largest retailer by sales, with more still to come.

At least, if their CEO of eCommerce is to be believed.

According to reports, Marc Lore, Walmart’s head of eCommerce and the founder and CEO of Jet.com, told participants in The Wall Street Journal’s annual tech conference that Walmart is looking to make buys in companies within the technology, retail and digital native brands categories.

Walmart’s recent buys — other than Lore’s Jet.com for $3 billion — include ShoeBuy, Moosejaw, Bonobos, Parcel, Hayneedle and ModCloth.

“Specialist positioning is better than mass,” said Lore. “We’ve empowered the leaders of these companies to basically run their category across the entire entity.”

Walmart has also announced the formation of Store No. 8, an internal project aimed at designing their own online retail startups.

The venture will be tasked with finding the cutting edge of technology that could be useful to Walmart’s total retail goals, as well as to create relationships with entrepreneurs, particularly those working in AI and other emerging tech.

Lore also referenced Walmart’s competitive plans regarding Amazon, which include building up its capabilities to offer private-label brands and faster deliveries nationwide. Lore said that right now, Walmart already has the infrastructure to do overnight delivery for 87 percent of the country.

In the meantime, Lore noted that we should expect Walmart to “crush it over the next two years,” and that he “wouldn’t trade our position with anyone right now.”

An upbeat take on the future.

Facebook Takes on Food

Facebook, in a bit of bandwagon jumping, will now allow users in the U.S. to order food from local restaurants through the Facebook app.

This will put Facebook in direct competition with a whole bunch of firms already in the crowded food delivery business.

But Facebook is not quite taking on the challenge alone — the company is partnering with some very well-known names in the space, including EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow, Olo, Zuppler and Slice, as well as restaurant chains like Jack in the Box, Five Guys, Papa John’s, Wingstop, TGI Fridays, Denny’s, El Pollo Loco, Chipotle, Jimmy John’s and Panera.

The food ordering option has been in beta for about a year, according to reports. Positive user response and engagement seem to have convinced Facebook to roll it out nationwide over Android- and iOS-powered phones.

Users can find the new “Order Food” option in the Explore menu in the Facebook app, where they can then browse area restaurants and click “Start Order” when they are ready to make their choices. Users will also be able to read restaurant reviews from friends.

The new ordering feature offers an option for delivery and take-out. Users who already have a Delivery.com account can use their existing logins to place the orders. If not, they can sign up for an account directly from within the Facebook app.

The “Order Food” option is not a direct revenue driver for Facebook, according to reports, as Facebook does not seem to charge any fees or receive any profits from orders placed through its app.

Instead, the new offering serves as a way to keep Facebook users inside the app for longer periods, while looking at the ads that do generate money for Facebook.

So, what did we learn this week?

Trying new things is fashionable this fall. Chase, with its many moves of late, is committed to building the next generation of financial services companies. Walmart is ready to rock the retail house with more acquisitions in key verticals, and Facebook would rather that you first order the buffalo wings from them before taking a picture and posting them on social media.