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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

#61

Post by mattmaroon »

dikaiosune wrote: post #33
mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Say 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…

I have had Prime literally since the day it launched. It makes little difference really. People without Prime in my area generally get stuff in a couple days. And few orders are below the free shipping threshhold. I'd bet the vast majority of Amazon orders have free shipping and as a result, the cost is factored in.

Maybe I'm lucky (price-wise) to live in suburbia. Example from yesterday, I bought some bromine for my hot tub on Amazon (cheapest they had because it's all the same) then in Lowe's later the same day saw it for less than half the price. Didn't even know Lowe's sold it!

Amazon prices are really only competitive on things that have a high cost to shipping weight ratio. Buy anything that is bulky or low margin (most stuff in Wal-Mart outside of electronics is one of those) and it's considerably more.

Also, there are a large number of items, like a Nest Thermostat, that for one reason or another have the same price anywhere. Those I buy on Amazon as well.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#62

Post by mattmaroon »

dikaiosune wrote: post #33
mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Say 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…

I have had Prime literally since the day it launched. It makes little difference really. People without Prime in my area generally get stuff in a couple days. And few orders are below the free shipping threshhold. I'd bet the vast majority of Amazon orders have free shipping and as a result, the cost is factored in.

Maybe I'm lucky (price-wise) to live in suburbia. Example from yesterday, I bought some bromine for my hot tub on Amazon (cheapest they had because it's all the same) then in Lowe's later the same day saw it for less than half the price. Didn't even know Lowe's sold it!

Amazon prices are really only competitive on things that have a high cost to shipping weight ratio. Buy anything that is bulky or low margin (most stuff in Wal-Mart outside of electronics is one of those) and it's considerably more.

Also, there are a large number of items, like a Nest Thermostat, that for one reason or another have the same price anywhere. Those I buy on Amazon as well.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#63

Post by mattmaroon »

MichaelGG wrote: post #47
dayaz36 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually most stores now do price matches to Amazon (including best buy and target among others), so there is no use for Amazon for me now. I used to go to best buy just to test the equipment before buying on Amazon, now I just show them the Amazon price on my phone and they match it. No shipping fee no waiting and cheaper. I think I'm going to have to try Jet.com now that Amazon is worthless

I guess you're one of the folks that would not pay a premium to simply not deal with ever having to set foot in a Best Buy. Returns? Gotta go to the store. Want a sightly different model (for instance the newer Canon Powershots are a downgrade) - wait for them to get stock. Plus the obnoxiousness of going to those stores. It's great you like getting out, dealing with retail and advertisements. But I think you aren't…

Returns are WAY better at a big box store. Here's the Amazon return process.

1. Go to site, fill out a form to get a shipping label.

2. Print said form. That's pretty much all I use my printer for in 2015. I even upgraded to a wireless one so I don't have to plug my damn laptop into it every time I want to return something.

3. I probably threw away the Amazon box. Gotta dig up a suitable one from the pile of spares I have in the attic just for returning stuff to Amazon.

4. Print packing slip, insert in box.

5. Gotta bust out the old packing tape. You know that stuff always comes out of the little guides on the side no matter how careful you were, so you have to unstick it. Do so while seething in rage that nobody has yet invented packing tape that doesn't stick to itself. Maybe a ratcheting roll that can't reverse?

6. Shellack that damn label to the box with tape. I don't have shipping labels for my printer because what am I, FedEx? So I cover it in like 8 strips of tape.

7. Go to whichever shipping service Amazon sent it from because unless you ordered a tiny USB cord, it's too big to fit into their drop box. It could be USPS, FedEx, or UPS, all of which are located next to the Best Buy where I could have just dropped the damned thing off in way less time and without having to fight a roll of packing tape.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#64

Post by unclebucknasty »

wspeirs wrote: post #35
jaredsohn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly this. Jet.com is literally building a business model for the mid-to-late 90s, as if there is no one in the space.

They are throwing tons of cash at poaching Amazon's (et. al.) customers and largely competing on price. It's completely nuts.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#65

Post by mattmaroon »

bcassedy wrote: post #54
dayaz36 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually most stores now do price matches to Amazon (including best buy and target among others), so there is no use for Amazon for me now. I used to go to best buy just to test the equipment before buying on Amazon, now I just show them the Amazon price on my phone and they match it. No shipping fee no waiting and cheaper. I think I'm going to have to try Jet.com now that Amazon is worthless

Most of the time when I try to price match at Best Buy or the like it turns out the model available on Amazon with the exact same specs and similar lower price point has one char changed on the SKU. It's become pretty common for there to be BB version, Target version, and Amazon version of all kinds of electronics.

That's usually only the case with large appliances or TVs or the like.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

TillE wrote: post #45
sixQuarks wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I remember Amazon well in its early days and it was nothing like Jet. Kozmo is a better comparison

Amazon was a pretty successful bookstore, and then they acquired CDNow and became a pretty successful music shop as well. They weren't selling things for crazy low prices, they were just convenient and had a huge catalog. By the time they moved to selling everything, it seemed like a stable business.

> Amazon was a pretty successful bookstore, and then they acquired CDNow and became a pretty successful music shop as well. They weren't selling things for crazy low prices

Yes, they were. They built their customer base from day one on extremely deep discounts; that was always their big selling point.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#67

Post by krishnakv »

The first I heard about jet.com was through this hanselminutes podcast - http://hanselminutes.com/494/jetcom-scales-with-azure-f-and-....

Their tech stack looks interesting and despite the anecdotes from this thread and the fact that I haven't ordered anything from them yet (I am outside the U.S), I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Amazon monopoly needs some competition and better it come from a company that's innovating with a better tech stack. I am confused about why they decided to get off a membership model, though...

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Say 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…

> Say 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.

But, on the things I just spot checked, still the same or lower than Jet.com has for the same items.

> 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 still break even.

IME, even recently, when I've checked Amazon prices online while standing in the stores, the gap usually went in the other direction.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#69

Post by dragonwriter »

paulcole wrote: post #46
mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Say 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…

Amazon doesn't want to compete on price. They want to compete on value.

No one wants to compete on price -- because that means you don't have market (pricing) power and will have margins squeezed.

Re: Facing Cash Crunch, Retailer Jet.com Racing to Complete Funding Round

#70

Post by [deleted] »

mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Say 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…

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