Jet.com to compete with Amazon.com

[Phil Thien]

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

[Phil Thien]

This just in... Amazon opens 10,000 accounts and plans to order stuff Jet will need to source from Amazon.

Just kidding.

[Prashun Patel]

Good luck. Amazon is too good. There's more to the shopping experience than the price - which Amazon is really hard to beat. I buy almost everything I need from Amazon. 'Take a loss' does not sound like a good business plan to me.
To each his own.

I got excited, though when I saw 'Jet.com'. I was hoping the Jointer Planer combo would be on sale there (coincidentally, Amazon has the best deal on the machine I'm looking at - and they'll ship it free, Prime, too!)

[Ryan Mooney]

'Take a loss' does not sound like a good business plan to me.
To each his own.


Heh, have you looked at Amazons financials lately?

Anyone else feel like they're back in the 90's again?

[Paul McGaha]

There was another thread a few days ago about the amazon prime member sale. We didn't buy anything during that sale that I know of but I started thinking about how many orders we make from them. I'd say an order a little less than 1 per week. Maybe 40 orders per year. Probably more orders around Christmas.

You guys remember Tool Crib of the North? When I was first setting up my shop I used that vendor a lot. I guess amazon wound up with them somehow.

I'm a big fan of amazon.

[Art Mann]

I never buy anything from Amazon that isn't sold or fulfilled by them. In the past, I have had bad experiences with shipping from outside affiliates and I am not interested in dealing with that again. It sounds like this company is planning on doing a lot of business that way. No thanks.

[David Ragan]

I never buy anything from Amazon that isn't sold or fulfilled by them. In the past, I have had bad experiences with shipping from outside affiliates and I am not interested in dealing with that again. It sounds like this company is planning on doing a lot of business that way. No thanks.

Yep.......

[Michael Weber]

They're going to lose several dollar on each sale but plan on making it up in volume :rolleyes:

[Michael Weber]

Had to bring this back to the top. They now are open and I reviewed several items I typically purchase as needed at the local Sam's Club. Jet wasn't even close on price. Way higher. I think I can pay less at local stores on most basic necessities. Checked on a couple of tools but they just provided the Amazon price. Not sure why anyone would pay to join. YMMV