潜水简介：
- Blue Apron, a meal-kit delivery company,submitted a filing与美国证券交易委员会（美国证券交易委员会）一起，该委员会将在APRN的符号下将公司列为纽约证券交易所。该公司希望在IPO中筹集1亿美元。
- The prospectus showed net revenue grew from $78 million in 2014 to $795 million in 2016, but at the same time its losses increased to $55 million last year from $31 million two years earlier.
- 在文件中，蓝色围裙警告说，它具有“损失的历史，我们可能无法实现或维持盈利能力”。它还指出了其业务的风险，包括食源性疾病，消费者口味或偏好的变化，一种“新颖的商业模式”，使得很难评估其未来的前景和挑战，以及其他竞争对手，例如超市。
潜水见解：
The S-1 filing from Blue Apron is among the first to give a detailed look at the financials of the much-hyped meal delivery company and the challenges that players in the ultra-competitive sector face to fend of competitors and grow their businesses. Blue Apron, founded in 2012, noted several risks, including the high cost of acquiring and retaining customers, changing consumer preferences and the possibility that it may never post a profit.
该文件说：“我们的扩张努力可能比我们预期的要昂贵，而且我们可能无法成功增加收入和利润率，以抵消这些更高的费用。”“因此，我们可能无法实现或维持盈利能力，我们可能会在可预见的未来造成巨大的损失。”
At the end of March, Blue Apron had just over 1 million customers who averaged 4.1 orders per person compared to 649,000 customers making 4.5 orders each in the first quarter of 2016. At the same time, the average order value dropped to $57.23 from $59.28 during the same time, and the average revenue per customer declined to $236 from $265.
这些数字显示，该公司正在吸引客户，但是他们的订购量较低，即使这样做也没有支付那么多。这些数字暗示了两个可能的结论，这对公司来说都不是个好消息：Blue Apron的新客户可能对服务的兴趣少于其早期采用者 - 或越来越多的人在使用几次后放弃服务，每个客户的平均订单率和账单。
An interesting point highlighted by Blue Apron in the document is the "significant amounts" spent on advertising and other marketing activities. Give the competitive nature of the industry, meal-kit delivery companies such as Blue Apron and HelloFresh have little choice but to spend big to acquire customers. For Blue Apron, this expense has soared from $14 million in 2014 to $144 million last year, an increase of 930% over that period.
"If any of our marketing activities prove less successful than anticipated in attracting new customers or retaining existing customers, we may not be able to recover our marketing spend, our cost to acquire new customers may increase, and our existing customers may reduce the frequency or size of their purchases from us," according to the company.
正如Blue Apron在提交文件中指出的那样，饮食服务的未来毫无疑问。许多企业都希望采取行动，并非所有业务都会成功。Sprig最近准备了饭菜并将其交付给消费者said it was shutting down。初创公司SpoonRocket和Maple Food也遇到了类似的命运。
Grocers, eager to protect themselves and attract consumers to their stores with more choices, are entering the mix, too. Meal-kit startup Salted announced last month it isteaming up with Whole Foods和other grocers to sell meal kits inside stores. Publix Super Markets and Kroger also haveannounced they are testing the meal kits在他们的一些商店。无论蓝色围裙发生什么情况，餐食空间都会有望瞥见不断发展的杂货行业的未来。
