Earlier quoted context omitted.
If pivoting means you're not smart, HN would be the stupidest place on the internet.
I think the point was the lack of success, not smarts.
[deleted]
Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
131–140 of 196 posts
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#132Earlier 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…
> What surprises me is that in many European countries, you can now order ALL of your groceries delivered.
In the US my local grocery (Harris Teeter) has a service where you order online and go through a drive through to pick up. The cost was $4.95/order or $99/year. They have recently added full delivery for $14.95/order (not sure on the yearly fee).
I live in a medium sized city.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just got a flyer in the mail offering $10 off my next 3 purchases. That's not cheap.
Yeah, I even remember a rumor going around that they were dropshipping for some items. If something was out of stock they would get it from newegg or amazon and send it to you.
No - Many sellers that sell on Jet are just re-selling their Amazon inventory in a new market. Amazon will happily ship it for you to Jet company through the MCF program.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...
Jet had a rule though - No boxes with competitor logo. So you had to pay Amazon $1 per box to ship it without a logo.
An Amazon email just went out they are discontinuing the unmarked boxes for $1 program. Likely directly to fight Jet.
Let me know if you had any more questions about how any of this work.
Source - Worked at a startup that let people sell on places like Jet with Amazon inventory.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I even remember a rumor going around that they were dropshipping for some items. If something was out of stock they would get it from newegg or amazon and send it to you.
I have a theory about this, it happened to us when we bought some childrens books on Jet. They came in the mail from Barnes and Noble with a packing slip that had a price higher than we paid included with it. It doesn't explain the Amazon example you mentioned, but I was under the impression they have special affiliate arrangements with 3rd party retailers and that they were somehow being allowed to invest their affi…
This is exactly what they do. You aren't supposed to include prices but some people forget.
The more items you buy, the bigger cut of the commission Jet gives you off. The buyer almost never pays the same cost as what the seller got paid.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#135I tried to shop for Gatorade and Clif Bars on Jet recently, knowing that it's promoted itself with home products and such. What I found were comical prices ($127.10 for 21 oz. of Gatorade mix) for a poor selection, so I gave up on it. I don't really know what value Walmart gets out of this purchase other than a heavily promoted brand and the ability to go back to focusing on Amazon. It feels like Yahoo and Tumblr.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#136Earlier 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…
>Non-US access got blocked with a captcha
Walmart.com blocks the VPN I use with a generic 403 Forbidden.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a theory about this, it happened to us when we bought some childrens books on Jet. They came in the mail from Barnes and Noble with a packing slip that had a price higher than we paid included with it. It doesn't explain the Amazon example you mentioned, but I was under the impression they have special affiliate arrangements with 3rd party retailers and that they were somehow being allowed to invest their affi…
I received a box from amazon after making a purchase on Jet.
The seller messed up and violated the Jet TOS to do that.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#138Jet.com was founded in 2014. How did they get enough traction to be viable when there are so many other online retailers like Amazon, and all the other brick and mortar retailers that also have large online presence.
I've often wondered about this. Each time I've compared Jet against prices from other retailers, the results have been underwhelming. Occasionally someone mentions a slightly better deal on Jet, but nothing that would rationalize the hype around this company. I'm assuming that Jet was just intended to be a short term play, ending with a float to an established retailer.
Most of the sellers are the same. Same sellers, same costs.. how much cheaper could it be outside of special deals?
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#139Earlier 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…
This is fairly common in the US as well.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Granted, I don't think many engineers are making out with seven figures here, but they should be making whatever their shares were supposed to be worth at the most recent valuation. That's if they joined after the last funding round, more if they joined earlier.