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

wsj.com

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

#121

Post by vertex-four »

Someone1234 wrote: post #97
michaelbuddy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet, based on its promotional content is heavy into the home products category. Walmart would love to knock them out to absorb that competition to getting delivery and even subscription delivery of home products. So it may be the price Walmart is willing to pay to ensure nobody is making Jet their new source for houseware products and avoiding the WalMart Brand. We also don't know what else Jet has in the pipeline, n…

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…

Walmart's brand in the UK - ASDA - provides online shopping with both collection and home delivery services. Not really sure why they don't do it in the US.

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

#123

Post by gk1 »

abc_lisper wrote: post #117

WTF is Jet.com? I have never heard of it, why is it worth 3B if it is not common knowledge!! Sigh!

This kind of comment comes up often in these threads. It takes a certain degree of conceit to think a company can only be valuable if you heard of it.

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

#124

Post by losteverything »

Someone1234 wrote: post #97
michaelbuddy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet, based on its promotional content is heavy into the home products category. Walmart would love to knock them out to absorb that competition to getting delivery and even subscription delivery of home products. So it may be the price Walmart is willing to pay to ensure nobody is making Jet their new source for houseware products and avoiding the WalMart Brand. We also don't know what else Jet has in the pipeline, n…

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

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

#125

Post by Xyik »

kenrikm wrote: post #114
potatolicious wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Those would have to be some impossibly harsh terms" Harsh terms yes, but not uncommon. Preferred shares are common for investors that pay out at a multiple of the common shares, so in an exit the preferred pool can be paid at a dramatically higher rate than common shares. Funding often also comes with guarantees on return - i.e., if the exit price is below a threshold, the investor gets a guaranteed minimum return…

Even if the terms ate up 2.9B of the 3B an engineer with 1 point will still walk away with close to a million. I don't buy it.

It's rare for an engineer to have 1 point they would probably have to be engineer #1 or #2

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

#126

Post by MichaelGG »

brianbreslin wrote: post #83
ktamura wrote: post #55

This buyout is based on FUD, and FUD-based investment is a recipe for disaster. From the OP: >But for both Jet and Wal-Mart, Amazon’s frenzy of warehouse construction and fast delivery—as quickly as one-hour—have proved formidable. The retailer has logged three straight quarters of record profit while locking in an estimated 60 million members to its $99-per-year Prime service, cultivating a loyal customer base and g…

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 customers using freight forwarders.

When I went to purchase, the site stopped working, just providing some sort of generic error page. I called them up. A lady told me they were "performing maintenance" (middle of day). The website provided zero indication; just appeared broken.

Shipping took a while.

I'm certain they have smart people. But my anecdotal experience was that things were a bit clueless and not even remotely close to the level of taking on Amazon in any way.

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

#127

Post by avivo »

Did WSJ have the $3B clickbait title and then change it? Or did the HN submission just add the extra "for $3B"?

All the article says is that "a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets."

If this is a HN addition, can that be fixed?

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

#128

Post by nommm-nommm »

protomyth wrote: post #60
poopsintub wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has been offering 3rd party sellers/products for more than a few months now, if I had to guess. I bought a USB cable from Cable Matters, but the names of some of the companies/sellers on Walmart's website also lead me to believe they are selling products which aren't certified and have the correct components to be safe with our devices.

Well, guess I'm going to have to find someone else to order from next time. This is just so disappointing, its like the retail version of flash ads.

Yeah I know what you mean, I just ordered a cable from Walmart.com the other day not realizing it was from a third party seller until after it shipped. Felt like a bait and switch.

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

#129

Post by Xyik »

Clearly jet.com's primary user base isn't from the tech crowd. Looking at the comments, seems like a lot of people don't understand that Jet's user base is probably value-conscious consumer's that shop for household items on a recurring basis. Without knowing any numbers I'm surprised at all the backlash in the comments.

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

#130

Post by brianwawok »

api wrote: post #104
carsongross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upper management is filled with cargo cult thinking around technology. I see it even in software companies. Someone advocating a rational, realistic way forward (like you) would be pushed out in favor of people who "get it" and want to "move things forwards dramatically"

Business in general is filled with cargo cult thinking in my experience.

Isn't that what the culture of a business is? A bunch of people who think similar things. If you take a bunch of similar people and apply the same rewards, behavior would tend to be similar.

partially why consultants can come in and clean up shop. They don't care about following the conventions.

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