Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B • Hacker News Board

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#171

Post by deftnerd » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:43 AM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #124

Someone1234 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What surprises me is that in many European countries, you can now order ALL of your groceries delivered. You place an order, and someone physically walks around a local supermarket, picks up stuff, they put on a van, and it is delivered to your home. It is actually very inexpensive (and free if you spend enough). Yet nobody in the US does that (well nobody outside of big cities). Walmart right now today has a HUGE ad…

Recently went on vacation and used grocery pickup at a Maine grocery store and picked up groceries for the entire week. Awesome service but I asked the lady how many pick ups they did this Sunday and she said 35. and I said what's the most and she said 65 - 70. Grocery pick-up has not caught on yet and grocery delivery I would imagine is even less than that

I have three young kids and it's very difficult to go shopping with them. If they're not causing problems, they're taking up space in the cart. Sometimes when my wife and I go together with the kids, we push one cart with the kids piled in and one cart for the actual groceries.

Being able to order our groceries online and have them delivered or picking them up in some kind of drive-through lane is a huge quality of life improvement for families like mine.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#172

Post by fowlerpower » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:57 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #126

brianbreslin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has already spent close to $12B funding walmart.com/labs and not made a dent in catching Amazon. Jet has a super smart team looking at ways to gain margins in areas amazon is ignoring. short term their investors won't appreciate this buy.

This super smart team didn't even know how to configure Cloudflare. Non-US access got blocked with a captcha. This same company disabled downloading their app if you weren't in the US. And then the site would plaster big scary banners telling you a ZIP code was mandatory and if you weren't in the US, beware! Who comes up with this stuff? Somehow, with all that money raised, they failed to realise there'd be some cust…

I'm not sure I understand, or rather I don't think you understand their business model...

I think they set up their CloudFlare 100% correctly.

Jet does not sell outside the U.S., they have no plans to ever sell outside they U.S. Most of the cyber attacks against them are from outside the U.S. Their entire business plan is cutting cost out of the supply chain inside the U.S. By bundling items together in the same box and saving the consumer in the U.S. Money.

The entire point is to reduce the risk footprint, when most startups are being hacked left and right jet is being very smart by throwing captchas and saying to everyone outside the U.S. we don't want your scammy business.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#173

Post by fowlerpower » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 3:07 AM UTC

nlh wrote: post #120

Whoa whoa whoa stop the clock ;) Before everyone gets up in a big frenzy on the price, read the article (closely): "It isn’t clear how much Wal-Mart would pay, but a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets." That is nowhere near a statement that $3B is number from Wal-Mart. That means "someone" thinks they COULD be valued at UP TO $3B in "private markets". That…

Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either.

Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the double digits Walmart is in the single digits online. How is Walmart going to catch them?

If jet is at 4 million+ loyal customers in a years time being live, how exactly is it dumb to buy a company that is at 1.1 billion in sales in a years time when it took you 10 years to get to that? How long has Walmart been selling online? Jet will pass Walmart in under 2 years, then what will Walmart do to beat Amazon?

I think people on hacker news live in la la land. Ecommerce is very different from your googles and facebooks.

Marc Lore knows exactly what he's doing, he probably won't sell it to Walmart for that little.

Edits: spelling and grammar.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#174

Post by soup10 » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 3:34 AM UTC

fowlerpower wrote: post #173

nlh wrote: post #120

Whoa whoa whoa stop the clock ;) Before everyone gets up in a big frenzy on the price, read the article (closely): "It isn’t clear how much Wal-Mart would pay, but a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets." That is nowhere near a statement that $3B is number from Wal-Mart. That means "someone" thinks they COULD be valued at UP TO $3B in "private markets". That…

Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either. Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the doub…

found the Jet investor

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#175

Post by fowlerpower » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 3:35 AM UTC

soup10 wrote: post #174

fowlerpower wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either. Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the doub…

found the Jet investor

Caught me red handed. lol.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#176

Post by driverdan » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 3:40 AM UTC

fowlerpower wrote: post #173

nlh wrote: post #120

Whoa whoa whoa stop the clock ;) Before everyone gets up in a big frenzy on the price, read the article (closely): "It isn’t clear how much Wal-Mart would pay, but a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets." That is nowhere near a statement that $3B is number from Wal-Mart. That means "someone" thinks they COULD be valued at UP TO $3B in "private markets". That…

Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either. Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the doub…

> If jet is at 4 million+ loyal customers

I doubt many of them are loyal. Most ordered from Jet due to huge discount codes, making them the cheapest. I'd love to see how many people place a second order, one with no discount code.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#177

Post by fowlerpower » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #176

fowlerpower wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either. Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the doub…

> If jet is at 4 million+ loyal customers I doubt many of them are loyal. Most ordered from Jet due to huge discount codes, making them the cheapest. I'd love to see how many people place a second order, one with no discount code.

What is it with people on hacker news? You all love Amazon or something? Chances are a lot of them are coming back because their system, at jet, is guaranteed to be cheaper if you buy multiple things. It is why they have double the order size when compared to Amazon, at least according to the news articles.

Amazon is about to close down every Walmart in America. They are going to shut down the number one employer in the whole country. It is absolutely on its way.

I for one hope we have a few players in this space.

Edits: for grammar and clarity.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#178

Post by MichaelGG » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 4:02 AM UTC

fowlerpower wrote: post #172

MichaelGG wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This super smart team didn't even know how to configure Cloudflare. Non-US access got blocked with a captcha. This same company disabled downloading their app if you weren't in the US. And then the site would plaster big scary banners telling you a ZIP code was mandatory and if you weren't in the US, beware! Who comes up with this stuff? Somehow, with all that money raised, they failed to realise there'd be some cust…

I'm not sure I understand, or rather I don't think you understand their business model... I think they set up their CloudFlare 100% correctly. Jet does not sell outside the U.S., they have no plans to ever sell outside they U.S. Most of the cyber attacks against them are from outside the U.S. Their entire business plan is cutting cost out of the supply chain inside the U.S. By bundling items together in the same box…

They do sell to people that are outside of the US. They just sell via freight forwarders. In Central America (and probably all over) there are many businesses that exist entirely to service customers. The biggest bank in the country I'm in now (Guatemala) gives people credit cards and a Miami address specifically marketed to buy stuff off Amazon.

You'd think with all that money spent, they'd have recognized this. FWIW, they eventually fixed it, a week or two (or so) after several poorly-written emails I sent them. So I think it is more likely to be the result of bad thinking, or just being unaware of the situation.

Furthermore, if their anti-hacking defense relies on a captcha or not being able to easily download their app, they're beyond screwed. I don't think they are that incompetent, it might have been, at best, oversight.

Probably the fault is at least partially on Cloudflare, though. Trump's read-only campaign website throws up a captcha at least to Guatemala. And GT isn't known as a centre of any hackers, to say the least. So if they have high profile sites like that which are misconfigured, perhaps they don't do enough review or customer education.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#179

Post by fowlerpower » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #178

fowlerpower wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand, or rather I don't think you understand their business model... I think they set up their CloudFlare 100% correctly. Jet does not sell outside the U.S., they have no plans to ever sell outside they U.S. Most of the cyber attacks against them are from outside the U.S. Their entire business plan is cutting cost out of the supply chain inside the U.S. By bundling items together in the same box…

They do sell to people that are outside of the US. They just sell via freight forwarders. In Central America (and probably all over) there are many businesses that exist entirely to service customers. The biggest bank in the country I'm in now (Guatemala) gives people credit cards and a Miami address specifically marketed to buy stuff off Amazon. You'd think with all that money spent, they'd have recognized this. FWI…

The captchas serve to stop bot nets and DDoS attackers who are all over the world. It is why many sites throw those up. It is not a miss configuration. It is a smart move.

Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B

#180

Post by brianbreslin » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 4:23 AM UTC

carterehsmith wrote: post #164

brianbreslin wrote: post #143

Jet is on pace to do $1B in sales this year (not profit, but gross merchandise value). Not bad for a company only selling stuff for 16 months. They aren't a direct competitor to Amazon in model, they are closer to a seamless version of Flipkart in india. My friend who works there says they see Target as their competition more so than Amazon, and that could be what Walmart sees too. I do wish we could have seen where…

I mean, it is not really hard to make $1B in sales if you have >$500M to burn ;)

Tell that to Lyft/WeWork, and a number of others ;-)