They're hitting the same problems that Groupon hit. Their margins are extremely low, the cost of acquiring and retaining customers is high, and there's no barri

They're hitting the same problems that Groupon hit. Their margins are extremely low, the cost of acquiring and retaining customers is high, and there's no barrier to entry for competitors. For example, during the last 12 months at Blue Apron they spent $178 million on marketing, and acquired 387,000 customers (these figures are from their IPO). That's $460 per customer. Getting hold of customers is not cheap, and many of these customers are not loyal or are stopping the service after only a few deliveries.