Retail Tech's Upcoming Revolution

In this week's episode of Industry Focus: Consumer Goods, host Nick Sciple talks with fool.com analyst Dan Kline about the coolest trends he saw at this year's Shoptalk conference -- namely, the democratization of cutting-edge retail technology.

Find out just what's available cheaply and easily to retailers across the board, what that means for players who aren't Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Walmart (NYSE: WMT), or Target (NYSE: TGT), and how those giants will have to respond to stay relevant. Also, the hosts talk about the ongoing drama that is Papa John's (NASDAQ: PZZA), which will hopefully be getting a lot less dramatic soon, and rumors of some spinoffs coming out of the serial brand acquirer JAB Holdings (including the potential coffee spinoff no one asked for or particularly wants). Tune in to find out more.

A full transcript follows the video.

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This video was recorded on March 12, 2019.

Nick Sciple: Welcome to Industry Focus, the podcast that dives into a different sector of the stock market every day. Today is Tuesday, March 12th, and we're talking Consumer Goods. I'm your host, Nick Sciple, and today I'm joined in studio by Motley Fool contributor Dan Kline. How are you doing, Dan?

Dan Kline: I'm good, Nick! How are you?

Sciple: I'm doing great, Dan! Good to have you in the D.C. area once again! You've returned from yet another trip to Vegas. How was your trip? What went on there?

Kline: I went, as some of you Industry Focus fans know, to Shoptalk with Matt Frankel, another Industry Focus frequent guest. That's a retail show that draws some heavy hitters. A lot of the keynotes are CEOs or CFOs, COOs. It's really a showcase for technology. This year -- we'll talk about this later in the show -- I thought of it as the democratization of some pretty high-end technology, meaning that things that used to only be available to Amazon, Walmart, Target, companies that created it, now you're seeing off-the-shelf versions of it. You're starting to see technology that was once really hard to come by work a little bit like the way the cloud does. Any company can jump in. We'll talk about all the different things that are being offered, but it was a really interesting place to be.

Sciple: Excited to hear your thoughts about these new developments in retail on the second half of the show. But first off, we're going to talk about some news particularly in the restaurant and retail space. Later on, we're going to talk about JAB Holdings, rumors that they're going to spin off their coffee and restaurant chains into two separate IPOs.

But first, we have some news out of Papa John's pizza. Papa John's has been in the news over the last year in a very public battle with their founder and largest shareholder, Papa John Schnatter. This past week, we got some news about that conflict between Papa John's and the Papa John. Dan, can you talk to us about what that news was?

Kline: Papa John was suing his namesake company because he was somewhat forced out of his role as executive chairman and really forced out of day-to-day operations, along with things like, he was entitled to office space, he had certain levels of control -- all of those things were kicked to the side. The company had adopted, let's call it a poison pill, to make sure that he wasn't the person that bought the company when, for a while, they were looking to be sold. Now, they've taken $200 million from Starboard, and they're not so much on the market. To make this all awkward, Papa John was still on the board. Imagine, I'm sure you have someone like this in your family, someone who is suing everybody else but still comes to Thanksgiving.

Sciple: Right. It can make the relationship extra complicated. When you have a company whose name is synonymous with Papa John, it's in the name, and with him still being the largest shareholder, agitating for changes within the company, this is a significant development. Now, Papa John no longer being on the board, no longer has a formal relationship with the business outside of his share position.

Kline: That was the settlement. Papa John agreed to drop his lawsuit, resigned from the board. He will have a role in choosing the independent director that replaces him. They didn't quite spell it out, but I think they need to agree on whoever that person is. But Papa John owns 26% of the company, and they have removed the poison pill. So, yes, he's gone, but if the stock continues to stumble, there's every chance he tries to buy it back and it becomes a battle, but at least a battle where he has recused himself from being on the board and voting on his own proposals.

Sciple: Right. This is going to be an interesting battle. Papa John's has struggled recently out of the controversy that Papa John himself may have contributed to. We've seen EPS trade down almost 50% in the past year. You mentioned to me before the show, same-store sales have declined 8.1% in the most recent quarter and 7.3% for the full year. As we see Papa John's maybe being back on the market for sale, maybe Papa John Schnatter playing a role in this, it's going to be some near-term news around that transaction. We have to question, what's going on with the brand?

Kline: I think the Papa John controversy just accelerated some of the brand problems. If you look, who are they competing with? They're competing with Domino's. They're competing with more expensive pizza that has moved into the better space that Papa John's is always trying to falsely stake out. Like, maybe it's better than Domino's or, I don't know, Ellio's frozen pizza. But they're facing a ton of competition. But what Domino's does exceptionally well is execute. You can get a Domino's pizza inexpensively, quickly, through a variety of different platforms. They have a really easy-to-use app, they're easy to call up and order from. Papa John's had not brought its technology about. They were relying on this, "Hey, we're better! Better pizza, better ingredients!"

What scares me is, the chairman of the board continues to say, "We want to focus on better pizza, better ingredients," though the CEO does talk about how they need to improve their app, they need to get their technology better. They need to make it as easy to get a Papa John's pizza as it is to get a Domino's pizza because you're not ordering either of those pizzas because they're good pizza, unless you're 11.

Sciple: Right. We were chatting about this before we started recording. I might get Austin Morgan to jump in and give us his thoughts on this. We've seen, in recent years, as you mentioned, Papa John's brand was built around the "better ingredients, better pizza" mentality. When we've had all these new places come in, local operators that are selling quality pizza, it's been very difficult for Papa John's to differentiate itself on quality. Meanwhile, we've seen Domino's and Pizza Hut and these others push toward the whole concept of convenience and low prices, which is going to attract customers that are buying from these large pizza chains.

Austin, when's the last time you ordered from Papa John's? How has your pizza-buying experience changed in recent years?

Austin Morgan: I think the only time I ever order Papa John's is when I'm having a bunch of people over and the Nats or Caps won by four, or whatever the deal is, to get that Caps 50, Nats 50, and I'm only paying half price. That's the only time I order Papa John's.

Sciple: Right! Because it's cheap! And when you're talking about these Papa John's and Domino's folks, throw Pizza Hut in there as well, it just seems they're all competing on the factor of convenience and price. It's really difficult to differentiate yourself from a quality perspective these days.

Dan, what do you think Papa John himself, Papa John Schnatter, leaving his formal role with the business, and these questions around the brand? What are your thoughts on Papa John's moving forward over the next couple of years?

Kline: I would rebrand. I don't think there's any positive equity in the Papa John's name. I think as long as you can move anyone who has your app into the new name, which is obviously easy enough to do, I would focus on execution and make that part of the name. Quick Pizza! Speedy Pizza! Or whatever. Because I don't believe a $5.99 pizza or $6.99 or whatever it is can be as good as all of these 20-to-50-location, fast-casual, make-your-own-pizza. And in most cases, "Insert Town" House of Pizza is better than Domino's or Papa John's, they're just not particularly good at delivery or execution or answering the phone. So everything about this has to be making the brand something that matters to consumers.

Domino's has shown that quality is not the key ingredient. You can't go below a certain level. Maybe they should promote, "Hey, we're going to redo our pizza recipe," much like Domino's did a few years ago. I would argue they made their pizza different, not necessarily better. Then, really try to get away from this Papa John's thing. I don't think the ads they're running now, where, to combat the controversy, they're just showing all the different owners and how diverse they are, I don't think that speaks to the average consumer who just remembered that they got Domino's because they could press a button and get Domino's. They didn't follow the business-page controversy of this.

Sciple: Right. It's definitely going to be an interesting story to continue to follow for investors. Resolving this conflict with Mr. Schnatter is maybe a break in the clouds, at least from what we've seen with it tarnishing the stock over the past year. However, there are some real questions, even notwithstanding all the issues around the Papa John, about whether the brand Papa John can position its pizza and its restaurants for success moving into the future. Definitely going to be something to continue to watch.

Kline: As a final thought, we talked about this yesterday when we were preparing the show -- one of the drags on Papa John's that doesn't get talked about is, they tend to, and this is anecdotal, be in lesser locations than Domino's is. As we have this retail space crunch, maybe they were in the OK plaza that had a couple of vacancies. Now that plaza is a chiropractor and a Papa John's. Whereas Domino's is in the plaza that has the CVS and the other thriving businesses. There might just be a whole retail shakeout where they have to look at their portfolio and maybe consider relocating some stores and investing. Domino's is redoing a lot of its stores, and they look a lot nicer. Papa John's has a pretty dated look, if you visit their stores.

Sciple: Right. It's a very competitive industry, pizza. For our listeners, we've painted the picture that way, particularly when it comes to Domino's. Like you said, they've made some really significant investments, bringing up to date on their technology and their locations that, Papa John's is going to have to match that. Something to continue to follow. This is a really important brand. I don't think it's a brand that's going to disappear overnight. However, there are some real questions here in the near term.

Talking about some other brands that would be very familiar to folks, let's talk about what's going on with JAB Holdings. In the past couple of weeks, we've got some news out of JAB Holdings. For investors that may not be familiar, JAB Holdings is a private company that owns major stakes in a lot of consumer and restaurant retail brands, things like Panera, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Keurig Dr Pepper. They're considering, over the next one to three years, spinning out their restaurant and coffee brands into two separate IPOs.

Dan, instant analysis when we see rumors of this news taking place, what are your thoughts? What should investors be paying attention to?

Kline: JAB has been rolling up brands and kind of doing nothing with them. They own Panera outright. They own Krispy Kreme outright. I can see the reason why they're not selling Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Panera. On the other hand, they own, I don't know the exact number but let's call it 20 different coffee brands. Peet's, Douwe Egbert, Tassimo. And when you walk into a Panera, Panera still has generic coffee service. Do you know anyone who has the same fondness for Krispy Kreme coffee that, say, a Dunkin' fan has for Dunkin' Donuts coffee?

Sciple: No, I don't. You go to Krispy Kreme to get the doughnuts. We were talking before that they have a very narrow product offering outside of their donuts. It's coffee, milk, water, that's about it. They haven't used these opportunities to create synergies between the brands.

Kline: So, logically, even if you don't change the Krispy Kreme offering, at least brand it! Have it be Douwe Egbert beans or whatever, get that cross-branding! But, logically, Panera sort of has an espresso coffee and a fake Frappuccino, make that something.

Now, the challenge -- and we've talked about this. In my opinion, it impacts an IPO. The value of any coffee brand that isn't Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts is very questionable. The argument I made for this is, as some of you know, Capital One has opened cafes. Inside the Capital One Cafe is Peet's, which is a JAB Holdings brand. The Peet's Cafe is not supposed to be a moneymaker, it's supposed to drive the banking business. So at my Peet's, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9 to 10, coffee is free if you have a Capital One card. What do you think a store should be like when it's three doors down from a Starbucks and it's offering free espresso-based drinks? How would you expect the store to be?

Sciple: You would hope that the company selling free coffee would have some significant traffic right next to the store selling coffee. But my guess is that the actual outcome was not consistent with that.

Kline: [laughs] There's almost never someone else in line. And on a regular day, at any point, if you have a Capital One card, it's 50% off. The prices are already a tiny bit lower than Starbucks. So, let's say, with 50% off, you're at maybe 55% or 60% compared to a Starbucks. And I have to admit, I'm guilty of this. These are stores that, you can see one from the other, more or less -- I still go to Starbucks four days out of five. [laughs] And I'm not even saying that's some sort of weird training. But there's a lot for JAB to roll up here. If they IPO, I think you'll see those brands being used smarter.

But what's interesting is doing a restaurant brand and doing a coffee brand takes away the incentive for some of those. They've been testing Einstein Brothers and Caribou Coffee, which are both their brands. The way they do it is clumsy, but at least you get the exposure for the products of both. If those are in separate IPOs...maybe they'll have similar management structures? So a lot of questions about what they're going to do.

Sciple: Right, Dan. We're not exactly sure the form this IPO is going to take. It's several years away. I will say, the purpose behind this IPO would be more to cash out for the owners of JAB, more so than to create value on the public markets. That raises the question -- if JAB is selling these to get some cash for its owners, who's going to operate these businesses? Whoever is going to operate these businesses is going to be tasked with, as we mentioned, Dan, making these brands work together in a way that they sing and create more value than each brand does by itself. And we have some question marks there.

Kline: I would think there's going to be some divestitures. On the restaurant side, Panera, Krispy Kreme, even Einstein Bros. Bagels, all serve different segments. Maybe you do some cross-pollination of those stores, where there's a nice Panera section in the Krispy Kreme. Maybe not. Maybe you sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts in your Einstein Bros. Bagels.

But on the coffee side, I would think that they can do what Starbucks did with Tazo. The say, "This is going to be our brand. These are going to be the premium. This is the consumer, this is the midlevel, this is the one we sell to restaurants, and these are the four extra we don't need." And either rebrand those products into things that they're already carrying, or sell those brands off.

Sciple: Dan, you're a guy that really likes his coffee. Really, more so than almost anybody I know, you're passionate about it. You have all the different coffee maker products. And this this includes Keurig Dr Pepper, as well as lots of other brands that we've mentioned. As you look out, assuming this IPO takes place of the coffee brands, where are you expecting these brands to fit into the market? Are you bullish on their prospects if they do end up existing on their own, that they can carve out a niche that grow over time? What are your thoughts there?

Kline: This is theoretically the Pepsi of coffee brands. If you're going to have Starbucks, and you're going to have an alternative, Dunkin' is playing in that space, Peet's, which is a JAB brand, they're trying very hard at retail to play in that space. But would you bet on Dunkin', which already has all of these deals, which has the great retail exposure, which is in airports and convenience stores? Or would you bet on this third company? It pushes the top JAB brand into the Royal Crown position. When's the last time you went to a 7-Eleven and saw RC Cola? It's not there. It's a niche player.

Maybe they can compete in some of the restaurants. Restaurants that compete with Starbucks are not necessarily going to want to have branded coffee. But look how many hotels and other places just reflexively are Starbucks licensees. Even if they don't have a Starbucks store, they still say, "We proudly brew Starbucks coffee." I'm not so sure they're going to be eager to replace that with, "We proudly brew Douwe Egbert," which is hard to pronounce and nobody knows what it is.

Sciple: Right. For our listeners, these brands that we're super familiar with coming onto the market can definitely create some opportunities to folks, and get us excited. I'll be excited to see, whenever we see the S-1 for these new IPOs, what the strategy is behind the companies and what opportunities they see for expansion. But there are some question marks as to how these brands are going to fit together as public companies, who's going to run them, and then, what the opportunity is for upside over the long term. Any going-away thoughts, Dan?

Kline: I will say, on the coffee side, there is the upside that it seems like their stake in Keurig Dr Pepper -- which is a controlling share, I don't remember the exact amount -- would be rolled into the, call it, its coffee platform company. So, then, they would be able to leverage the Keurig machine and all of the different things. While I don't see Keurig freezing out Starbucks anytime soon, they might not play with as many of the third-party people if they can offer a robust choice within their own brand family.

I still think this should be one company with the best assets combined in the best ways possible instead of two companies. But I wasn't asked! [laughs]

Sciple: [laughs] Yeah. We'll see how things play out when these companies roll off by themselves.

Kline: Just so you know, the timing on this is one to two years. So, we are jumping the gun a little bit.

Sciple: Yeah. Definitely something to continue to watch. It's something we're going to follow up on, I'm sure, whenever we get more details.

Now, Dan, we teased this off the top of the show. I want to talk a little bit now about Shoptalk, where you visited in Vegas last week. First off the bat, you mentioned some of the trends coming out of the conference off the top of the show. What got you most excited that you saw at Shoptalk last week?

Kline: You can see now that the retail space has fragmented. I don't want to say winners and losers, but there's the big boys and everybody else. And by big boys, I mean there's Amazon, There's Target, there's Walmart, there's a couple of major grocery chains. There's maybe one or two outliers like Costco that don't have to play in the same sandbox as everybody else. But then, almost every other retailer lacks the resources to innovate.

Walmart, which calls itself a technology company as often as it calls itself a retailer, can invent the in-store kiosk and play with it and test it over a year. Target can buy Shipt and figure out same-day shipping. Amazon, obviously, trying out drones and who knows what level of AI technology to predict that, you don't even know this, Nick, but tomorrow, you want blueberry scones, and one will be sitting on your desk when you get there.

So, at the show, I saw a lot of third-party technology companies that were offering technology that -- I hate to say looked at what Walmart, Target, and Amazon have done right, and they copied it. There were kiosks, white label kiosks you could buy to put in your store. I was really interested in a company that offered flexible warehousing space, sold like the cloud. Meaning, if you and I want to bring in a container of Motley Fool harmonicas to try to sell at Christmas time next year -- I'm not sure we'd be allowed to do that, but if we did -- we could rent the warehouse space and literally only pay for it while we were using it, and only for the services we needed. If we needed shipping, that would be there. If we needed unpacking or all the customs work, or if we just needed a place to put our box, you could get that sort of the same way you pay for the cloud, which is a consumption model.

I saw things like that for trucking, for payments, to give smaller players flexibility. One of the examples I'll give came from meeting with FLEX, the warehouse company. A home improvement chain, say, Ace Hardware, which is effectively a national buying group, could look and say, "I want to have a bunch of rock salt and snow blowers in New England because it's winter." And they only need those there for a few months. They're going to sell out, they know. They don't have to cram them in the back of their stores or leave tractor trailers in their parking lot or rent ridiculously expensive warehouse space. There's a lot of tools that allow mom-and-pop retailers, and Macy's, and pretty big chains, to do what Amazon and Walmart do, on a six-month trailing basis. Which, if employed correctly, could make more companies competitive, at least in some places.

Sciple: Right. This is a trend we're starting to see -- you mentioned the cloud -- where these resources, whether for cloud, it's computer operating bandwidth, or for logistics, access to trucking and warehouses, these things that, up to today, would have required a significant fixed-cost investment that blocked them off to folks outside of the largest folks in these industries. But now we're seeing these companies rise up to provide those offerings at a lower cost to the also-rans in these industries, like you mentioned. It's really exciting.

Kline: We talked about it as we prepped the show, it used to be that only a Starbucks could have an app as sophisticated as they do, that lets you order and mobile payment. Well, there's white label apps that do that now. Any restaurant can offer that. Gift cards used to be something that a regular retail store could only do in a physical format, they could not do in the digital tracking. Well, that's available. At Shoptalk, you saw very high-end trucking solutions. A company could manage all its orders, and instead of just working with three or four partners, they could find the exact best partner for every place something was going to go to, and know which of their warehouses to ship it out of, which of their stores, and do things as inexpensively as possible. You might never get as cheap as Amazon gets it. You're never going to have the scale. But if Amazon is 60% of the market and somebody can roll up through all these small companies 10%, 15%, it at least gives you the critical mass to be in the ballpark.

Sciple: Dan, when you look at the opportunities that this new technology is going to open up and these new offerings from the start-ups that you spoke with at Shoptalk, is this something that's going to let these companies come up and challenge Amazon's position? Or is this something that's just going to let these smaller players continue to exist in this new normal of retail?

Kline: Continue to exist and in some cases compete well. I live in a market where Publix is everywhere. It's a privately held grocery store chain. There's one every mile and a half in Florida. Publix can probably not invest the same amount of money as Walmart in automating grocery delivery. They certainly aren't going to spend the money doing it to figure out if people want grocery delivery. As the bigger companies establish the market, one of the companies I saw that I know Matt talked about yesterday offered a 10,000-square-foot back-of-the-store solution where you could take existing floor space and put in this automated, cart-driven grocery picker. Some human labor, but it takes a lot of the cost out of it. And you could, from one store, service a whole region. Well, if Walmart and Target prove that this market I'm in wants two-hour grocery delivery, then that investment can be made by Publix without them having to research it, without them having to invent the wheel themselves. That is a huge way to stay competitive.

I don't think consumers, as technology is getting tested -- I use Instacart and I get two-hour delivery all the time, but I don't think that's the norm in my market. It's not like you're going to walk into a grocery store and be like, "Ugh, you don't have two-hour delivery? I'm leaving!" But at some point, that might be the expectation, and they'll be able to offer all of these tools.

Sciple: Sure. So, that answers the question what role these tools and these start-ups might play to the businesses that are already operating and competing against Amazon and Walmart. The follow-up question I have for you is, for these start-ups themselves and the companies developing this technology, as we look out into the future, is this going to be something that investors might have an opportunity to invest in, in the public markets? Or do you think these start-ups are going to be acquired by these middle-tier businesses and be attached onto existing businesses to make them be able to compete more closely with Amazon or Walmart? Or do you think these companies are going to exist on their own?

Kline: If I was Amazon and Walmart, I would have been walking around these start-up areas in Shoptalk -- and there were a couple of them -- with a checkbook and trying to take players out of the game, and have some of this technology, put it into my incubation system, and see what lives and what doesn't. Some of the more mature companies, like the grocery store fulfillment company that I was talking about before, which actually has customers and product in the field, I think their goal is to be bought. Ideally, they're going to be bought by one of the big boys, because that's where the biggest money is. But, if you make in-store kiosks, and the whole retail market decides that buy-online-pick-up-in-store via a kiosk is the way to go, what's your total market? Sixty thousand stores? Thirty thousand stores? A hundred thousand stores? I don't know the number, but it's a very finite market. Once you've sold that product, you become a company like Brunswick. You sell the bowling lane and then you sell them, I don't know, alley wax and repairs until you invent something else. It's a very tough business to be in. So, yes, I think they're all hoping Amazon buys them.

Sciple: It's an exciting area of the market to watch because it's still developing. The whole idea of e-commerce and online ordering is only a little over 20 years old. We're still seeing businesses adapt to play in this market.

Dan, based on what you've learned in the last week and your knowledge of the industry, if we come back here and have this conversation in five years, how do you think the technology that's being developed today is going to change retail in the future? How should investors think about that?

Kline: Back-end automation is a reality. You are not going to have as much or any human factor in warehousing, picking orders, all of that should be -- it's not going to be 100%. A robot is probably not going to pack your order into the final bag for, say, groceries. But they're going to do an awful lot of it. You're not going to see as much front-of-house automation as you think. Consumers have shown some reticence to self-checkout. They're fully aware of the bagger who's not getting employed with that. So, I think there's going to be limits to that. Maybe there'll be some in-store help that's automated, but for the most part, you're going to see the back-end get automated, and you're going to see some level of inventory control, move to RFID and other methods. In a big chain like Walmart, there's no human who's going, "We need more Cheerios!" You're going to see that become commonplace at pretty much every store, as that technology is baked into your Square or QuickBooks CMS, your very basic models of in-store point-of-sale system.

Sciple: I'll say, as a consumer myself, all these developments are really exciting because to me, you look at creating all this access to delivery and convenience and reducing waste, which is probably both good for the environment and lowering prices, which is great for me as a consumer. I'm really excited about all these new developments we're seeing with both logistics and enabling online ordering.

I will say, I'm a little bit skeptical about how much value this is going to create for investors. I think this is more going to be something that creates consumer surplus more than it is for the producers. What are your thoughts on that, Dan?

Kline: If Amazon stamps out most of its competition, and only has to worry about Walmart, Target, and a couple of other players, they can start raising prices. You want to see the ability for, even if it's a niche player, even if it's a company that sells high-end NFL-branded cigars, if they can have efficient delivery and sourcing and all of the back-end things -- I recognize that that's a preposterous example of a company -- instead of you going to Amazon and buying a low-end version of that product, and that company doesn't have to charge you $39.99 for shipping because they can say, "You want it tomorrow? $29.99. Want it in three days? $15.99. You're willing to wait until whenever? $2.99." All of that technology was on display at this show. I think that will make the Amazons, Targets, Walmarts, work harder. They will really start to create some of the things we've talked about on this show -- better methods of sizing you, so you don't have to go into a store to buy a shirt; the ability to tell me that the outfit I'm buying online is a poor choice for me using an AI system; or whatever it is.

If you stopped now, and only the big players have access to this technology, you'd see a lot of small players go away, and the big players would get fat and lazy. So at least this keeps it competitive.

Sciple: Right. Where competition takes place, consumers a lot of times end up being the winner there.

Dan, thanks so much for traveling out to Shoptalk and giving us your latest thoughts! We'll have you on again soon.

Kline: I was going to say, speaking of winner, I will point out that Matt Frankel and I do a couple of these shows a year, and I have the damnedest luck of just randomly hitting a slot machine, which I almost never play. I'd be more than happy to get sent to -- as long as Matt's coming -- more of these Vegas-based shows.

Sciple: You won't have to drag my arm to get me out there, either, Dan. Maybe we'll do that one of these times and can create some nice content for our listeners.

Kline: Industry Focus: Live From Vegas.

Sciple: Exactly. Dan, thank you for joining us once again! Looking forward to having you on again soon!

Kline: Thank you!

Sciple: As always, people on the program may own companies discussed on the show, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against the stocks discussed, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. Thanks to Austin Morgan for his work behind the glass. For Dan Kline, I'm Nick Sciple. Thanks for listening and Fool on!

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Daniel B. Kline has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Nick Sciple owns shares of Square. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Square, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool recommends Costco Wholesale, CVS Health, and Dunkin' Brands Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.