Phil Thien
07-20-2015, 8:49 AM
Interesting article in the WSJ this morning about Jet.com (launching tomorrow). Basically they want to carry most everything Amazon.com carries, with low-priced items (toothpaste) being fulfilled by Jet's own warehouses, and pricier items being fulfilled by partner merchants.
It is a club-type offering, you have to pay $50/year to buy stuff from them. I wonder if their start is the reason Amazon just did a Prime promotion (Prime Day)...
Where they don't stock something and don't have a merchant partner, Jet actually orders the item from another site and often sells it for less than the acquisition price (they take a loss on it). The WSJ ordered a basket of goods for $275 ish and estimates it cost Jet in excess of $500 to supply the goods (yikes). They use real humans (like 300 of them and counting I think) they call concierges to perform this service.
The founder says they will break-even at $20B/year in sales, hopefully sometime in 2020.
They have investors with deep pockets, though, and they're looking for more of them. Their current market valuation is $600M and if they take another round of investments it will go to $3B.
Just thought it was interesting and I'd pass it along.
Countdown to opening:
http://www.jet.com
It is a club-type offering, you have to pay $50/year to buy stuff from them. I wonder if their start is the reason Amazon just did a Prime promotion (Prime Day)...
Where they don't stock something and don't have a merchant partner, Jet actually orders the item from another site and often sells it for less than the acquisition price (they take a loss on it). The WSJ ordered a basket of goods for $275 ish and estimates it cost Jet in excess of $500 to supply the goods (yikes). They use real humans (like 300 of them and counting I think) they call concierges to perform this service.
The founder says they will break-even at $20B/year in sales, hopefully sometime in 2020.
They have investors with deep pockets, though, and they're looking for more of them. Their current market valuation is $600M and if they take another round of investments it will go to $3B.
Just thought it was interesting and I'd pass it along.
Countdown to opening:
http://www.jet.com