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Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

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Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#161

Post by antisthenes »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #139
rogerdpack wrote: post #92

I figured out what is going on here. Walmart thinks to themselves "we want to be like amazon, we want to be huge online" and then jet comes along and is something of an almost competitor to amazon, so corporate thinks "oh we should snap this up" but...my gut reaction here is this is going to be a terrible deal for walmart, what are they going to do, keep dumping $500M/yr for it at a loss or what? Pretty desperate, bu…

Here's an assessment of how Walmart was doing against Amazon -- from the year 2000: ... the case for Amazon getting crushed by Wal-Mart doesn't stand up when you do some side-by-side comparing of their Web sites. What's wrong with Walmart.com? Put simply, it settles for taking orders for the products people come looking for rather than enticing them to buy things they hadn't even thought of buying. http://www.bloombe…

Amazon sells more than the next 10 biggest websites, combined.

It's useful to note that those 10 biggest websites are operated by large retailers with a physical presence, so it doesn't necessarily mean they're in trouble (walmart, macy's, home depot, etc.)

But the gap between Amazon and the next biggest e-tail site is huge. It's more of a canyon than a gap, really.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#162

Post by pbhjpbhj »

throwawaymsft wrote: post #107
toxican wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand remarks like that. The people who can put together something with similar functionality to Dropbox are by far in the minority. It's like having access to tons of scrap and be able to weld and dismissing metal bed frames because "I can do the same thing with some welding and scraps". Also the claim that it would eliminate my need for a USB drive was 100% on point.

It's strange how many aren't self-aware enough to realize when they aren't the target market.

I always assumed it was more about boasting than lack of self-awareness. Like how people post the same comment over again, I presume just to show they also thought of it.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#163

Post by morgante »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #30
tommynicholas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have to be much more than 2x - 2x would still have no impact because the acquisition was 2x the price of the last round.

You are right. I took a quick look at the cap table on CrunchBase and there is lots of smart money in it. It is definitely a win for the investors but how much of a win for common share holders is up to how hard the CEO fights for them.

I think everyone will be pretty happy. This isn't Marc's first company (he sold Quidsi to Amazon for $500M) and everyone I know was happy with that deal.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#164

Post by [deleted] »

elbasti wrote: post #113
nv-vn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he was just referring people to sign up for the website. The money was money he spent advertising the website(?), so the money only went to getting new members. The stocks were given as the reward for the most sign ups, not in exchange for money.

The point is that the stock was exchanged for something (referrals, marketing, etc), and that the contest was announced (ie, general solicitation). That no cash traded hands doesn't matter. There is precedent of an almost identical enforcement action by the SEC, but my google fu is failing me.

[deleted]

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#165

Post by throwawaylalala »

elbasti wrote: post #113
nv-vn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he was just referring people to sign up for the website. The money was money he spent advertising the website(?), so the money only went to getting new members. The stocks were given as the reward for the most sign ups, not in exchange for money.

The point is that the stock was exchanged for something (referrals, marketing, etc), and that the contest was announced (ie, general solicitation). That no cash traded hands doesn't matter. There is precedent of an almost identical enforcement action by the SEC, but my google fu is failing me.

Would be Jet.com's issue, not the guy.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#166

Post by therealdrag0 »

rb808 wrote: post #115
rb808 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Jet on a regular basis. I try to avoid Amazon wherever possible, they're good but they have too much power so I try to help any alternative. Their selection isn't as good as Amazon, but usually it arrives quicker. Books are not quick, but cheaper than BN (even though BN ships them) They must be burning lots of cash though. I placed a $100 order with about 7 items and it came in 6 different boxes.

I should add if Jet is now Walmart they aren't the small guys any more. Anyone have any alternatives?

Do you have any reason beyond principle to only use "small guys"?

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#167

Post by desireco42 »

camelNotation wrote: post #154
rogerdpack wrote: post #92

I figured out what is going on here. Walmart thinks to themselves "we want to be like amazon, we want to be huge online" and then jet comes along and is something of an almost competitor to amazon, so corporate thinks "oh we should snap this up" but...my gut reaction here is this is going to be a terrible deal for walmart, what are they going to do, keep dumping $500M/yr for it at a loss or what? Pretty desperate, bu…

Walmart has something Jet.com needs: one of the world's most advanced product delivery systems. Every Wal-Mart store is a distribution center waiting to happen. They are enormous and they are everywhere. Jet.com has something Wal-Mart can use to rocket its online presence forward: advanced online infrastructure, patents, a wealth of technology experts, and users. Together, Wal-Mart can beat Amazon at its own game by…

I am a little skeptical on Jet side, experts, patents etc. I think Walmart probably has better experts, but like someone said, this is mostly lead by corporate and I expect this to turn out to be terrible decision. But what do I know :)

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#168

Post by arcticfox »

antisthenes wrote: post #159
exclusiv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet.com is a disaster of a company fundamentally. However, it does make sense for a company like Walmart. I don't know about 3B, but Jet is a drastically cooler brand for them in their ecommerce battle esp. among millenials. Jet was previously fulfilling many orders from Walmart and now they can build a seamless integration to deliver competitively priced items quickly from the stores.

> I don't know about 3B, but Jet is a drastically cooler brand for them in their ecommerce battle esp. among millenials. Every time I see a comment like this, it really makes me wonder who these mythical millenials are. I work in a company with 11 millenials out of 16 employees and NONE of them have even heard about Jet, let alone bought from it. Now that Jet was acquired and will be quietly folded into Walmart, it's…

> will be quietly folded into Walmart

There are some huge assumptions built into your comment.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#169

Post by throwaway324328 »

Yhippa wrote: post #119
throwaway324328 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Throw away for obvious reasons) It is all total crap. We dumped a bunch of time and money into rebuilding everything as SOA and on all the latest technologies. Most of the work was done by an army of Indians that couldn't get jobs elsewhere in the valley. Absolutely nothing scales. We have more servers in total than peak users to the site, and still can't get any respectable performance numbers. The few smart people…

I hear they moved their back end to Node on Black Friday last year. If true that's damn impressive right? Unless it was a facade.

The node.js front end is on its second complete rewrite in the last 2 years, and a huge source of the scaling issues. Almost all the backend is still in Java.

Re: Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash

#170

Post by duderific »

antisthenes wrote: post #159
exclusiv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet.com is a disaster of a company fundamentally. However, it does make sense for a company like Walmart. I don't know about 3B, but Jet is a drastically cooler brand for them in their ecommerce battle esp. among millenials. Jet was previously fulfilling many orders from Walmart and now they can build a seamless integration to deliver competitively priced items quickly from the stores.

> I don't know about 3B, but Jet is a drastically cooler brand for them in their ecommerce battle esp. among millenials. Every time I see a comment like this, it really makes me wonder who these mythical millenials are. I work in a company with 11 millenials out of 16 employees and NONE of them have even heard about Jet, let alone bought from it. Now that Jet was acquired and will be quietly folded into Walmart, it's…

I think the GP probably meant that Jet is drastically cooler than Walmart, not Amazon.
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