Jet.com is going to flame out so quickly, and fairly predictably as well to a lot of outsiders. I wonder what the Jet.com investors were smoking, must have been some good stuff.
Probably jet fuel fumes.
Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
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Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#32Also, where are they spending this much on marketing, they've got almost no marketing presence imo?
At least in NYC the ads are everywhere and have been for almost six months
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#33Say what you want about Jet in particular but there's a real market opportunity here. Nobody but Amazon has much of a business in the "everything store" category, and Amazon's prices have gotten high. Compare almost anything there to the price at your local Wal-Mart, Target, etc. and there's a significant gap. Significant enough that you could buy it at retail prices, sell it at Amazon prices, ship it from UPS, and s…
I'm curious to see what items this applies to. I buy most things from Amazon, and when I comparison shop the prime shipping usually negates any price difference with other online retailers, and the price is very rarely beat by any in store prices where I live. Anecdotal to be sure, and I stick to items fulfilled by Amazon or direct from Amazon (mostly due to prime), but I see a lot of savings this way. And that doesn't include my time savings which has a measureable value top.
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#34Whoever designed their color scheme was nuts. The hue of their purple is incredibly nauseating, at least to me.
I find it to be a refreshing change from the numerous shades of blue everyone else uses.
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#35Jet.com doesn't seem to understand that Amazon can take losses in retail because they have margin from other sources--like AWS--as well as an overall ecosystem. And now, Amazon shows quarterly profits. They can go even deeper with discounts in retail. Jet is just not going to win by simply undercutting Amazon as a pure retail play. They're just adding to the already exorbitant burn rate generated by their marketing t…
I don't generally disagree with your comment, but I don't think Amazon had other sources in its earlier days (at least not AWS).
Amazon didn't have other sources, but they also didn't have a ton of competition or one "big guy" like Jet has with Amazon.
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#36Say what you want about Jet in particular but there's a real market opportunity here. Nobody but Amazon has much of a business in the "everything store" category, and Amazon's prices have gotten high. Compare almost anything there to the price at your local Wal-Mart, Target, etc. and there's a significant gap. Significant enough that you could buy it at retail prices, sell it at Amazon prices, ship it from UPS, and s…
> If nothing else we need a solid competitor to keep them honest.
I completely agree which is why I've been trying to support Jet by buying "house supplies" through them instead of Amazon.
Maybe I'm full of FUD, but I just see a day in the not-too-distant-future where are only option is Amazon.
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
When companies do rounds in that price range, it's often (maybe almost always) from PE or something other than VC. VC funds are usually not big enough for that. I wouldn't take that as a negative indicator.
Fidelity is not a leading PE firm either.
But they are a market maker probably positioning themselves to be the firm that takes them into an IPO
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#38I honestly want a list of Jet.com's newest investors so I can remember to never do business with them. This is the most obvious tire fire of an investment I've ever seen in my life (I missed seeing the late 90s dot-com bubble in person). The brand is completely irrelevant, they only have sales because they're losing money on each unit, they're losing $50 million per month and plan to keep losing that much ... what ex…
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Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#39I honestly want a list of Jet.com's newest investors so I can remember to never do business with them. This is the most obvious tire fire of an investment I've ever seen in my life (I missed seeing the late 90s dot-com bubble in person). The brand is completely irrelevant, they only have sales because they're losing money on each unit, they're losing $50 million per month and plan to keep losing that much ... what ex…
Many of the same things were said about Amazon back in the 90's. I was sure they were going to go down in flames when they moved from selling just books to selling everything... Though to be honest, I don't think Jet is the next Amazon.
No, I remember Amazon well in its early days and it was nothing like Jet. Kozmo is a better comparison
Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round
#40What does jet do, exactly? Going to jet.com seems to suggest that they sell laundry detergent and laptops...but this honestly just looks like every other "build yer own ecommerce" website that is just an amazon webstore.
Like...why would they be getting a $500M investment?