Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 333 posts

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#81

Post by switch11 »

archeantus wrote: post #76

I’ve always looked at the Jet deal as $3b to get their CEO Marc Lore to get in there and fix their e-commerce operations. If you look at the online sales performance since Lore joined, as well as the stock price (it has more than doubled), I think $3b was a good deal.

came on here to see when someone would catch this

Marc Lore was doing a great job with Diapers.com but ran out of money and had to sell to Amazon

that must have been a painful 2 years working for the guys who beat you

now WalMart has him and if they give him the right resources he is going to make a big dent in the whole 'Amazon is going to take over all of retail' narrative

He alone is worth far more than $3 billion

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#82

Post by greggyb »

michaelt wrote: post #41
snarf21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why Walmart doesn't have a customer supplied delivery program. Using the app, you would sign in when you enter the store. It would inform you of any deliveries within X miles of your home. It tells you how much you would be paid in store credit to do those deliveries. So you start shopping with say $33.50 already in your pocket. Then you just drop off a couple of bags at a few houses on your way ho…

> Seems more efficient and cheaper Option A: You drive to Walmart, pick up your shopping and three other people's, you drive home via three other homes. Option B: A driver starts at Walmart, picks up four people's shopping including yours, delivers it all, and returns to Walmart. Seems to me the number of person-hours and distance driven is identical in both cases?

Option A can likely be structured as a store incentive whose total dollar cost to Walmart is below that of an hourly worker.

Option B would likely be an employee requiring additional taxes to be paid and benefits to be supplied.

This is not a comprehensive argument.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#83

Post by switch11 »

ronack wrote: post #20
mark_l_watson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say the same thing. I would bet that there is a lot of jet.com tech and expertise now in Walmart.com.

Maybe it changed more recently, but in the first couple years after acquisition they (WM and Jet) had very different approaches to things like search and there was a lot of internal conflict over whose was better. I think they pretty much just kept things separate as a result, so probably not a lot of long-term tech value attained by WM.

Please see the earlier comments

Then see what WalMart's ecommerce growth was before Marc Lore

and what it is now after Marc Lore

Perhaps the single biggest factor that it is growing fast is that they got the CEO/Founder of Diapers.com and Jet.com to come help them understand ecommerce

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#84

Post by edgefield0 »

Terretta wrote: post #77
MangoCoffee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it seem like a waste not to continue the jet.com. its a simple domain that is easy to remember.

see also: buy.com -> rakuten // no amount of branding awareness tv ads are fixing the name recognition they lost with that one... still redirects though.

Why would you give up buy.com for "rakuten"?! What is rakuten anyway? Is this an established online retailer? First time I'm hearing of this company.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#85

Post by smachiz »

maxden wrote: post #59
snarf21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why Walmart doesn't have a customer supplied delivery program. Using the app, you would sign in when you enter the store. It would inform you of any deliveries within X miles of your home. It tells you how much you would be paid in store credit to do those deliveries. So you start shopping with say $33.50 already in your pocket. Then you just drop off a couple of bags at a few houses on your way ho…

Some customers might not like other customers knowing where they live? Obviously you can obscure some details but if you remove names would it require the customer to scan the package to confirm its theirs? I guess you could make it opt in for community delivery, otherwise you wait for a doordash delivery?

i mean "other customers" == 1099 contractor. The doordash guy is a shopper/customer also I'm sure. Doordash/uber/lyft/gig anything is just a random person with a smartphone and hopefully a background check.

If anyone is delivering something to your home, they know where you live.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#86

Post by LargeWu »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #17
snarf21 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Additionally, he HATES Amazon after what happened with his previous start-up diapers.com. Jet was another at bat against Amazon. Wal-Mart wanted his expertise and his drive to make them a true competitor to Amazon in the online space. It seems like it is working. The biggest problem is probably that the rest of Wal-Mart is not super agile and changes aren't going as fast as desired.

Walmart could have a huge competitive advantage if they advertised that they don’t commingle stock and made it easy to only order shipped and sold by Walmart.com. Although, Walmart also is known for accepting lower quality goods from brands in order to sell them at lower price, which isn’t much different from counterfeits, so I still wouldn’t buy from them.

This is the primary reason I don't shop at Walmart. Almost everything you find in their stores, save for grocery and branded household supplies, is of inferior quality.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#87

Post by dboreham »

coldpie wrote: post #37
swyx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happened to Techcrunch to make it so shit? Like i'm sure even the people who work at Techcrunch hate how bad it has become. Did the company change hands or something?

Browsing Wikipedia briefly, Techcrunch has been owned by AOL since 2010; AOL was acquired by Verizon in 2015; Yahoo! was purchased by Verizon in 2016; AOL was merged with Yahoo! to become Oath in 2016, and I believe all of the above mentioned subdivisions are now circling Verizon's toilet. They're just trying to find ways to monetize before the flush happens. If you're going to die anyway, why not make a few bucks se…

Except YouTube.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#88

Post by skuhn »

Terretta wrote: post #77
MangoCoffee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it seem like a waste not to continue the jet.com. its a simple domain that is easy to remember.

see also: buy.com -> rakuten // no amount of branding awareness tv ads are fixing the name recognition they lost with that one... still redirects though.

Even worse, rakuten.com is now the former ebates site? And the former buy.com is rakuten.com/shop?

Their branding strategy is garbage.

Re: Walmart says it will discontinue Jet

#89

Post by atomi »

marcusverus wrote: post #46
sct202 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon I think is sandbagging the estimates. We got a gift card during the holidays and decided to spend it, and we're non-prime and put in 2 orders. Both shipping estimates were 1 month out and then suddenly delivered 2 days after the order.

I've noticed the same pattern. Presumably they would rather lose business in the short term (by scaring away time-sensitive shoppers) than risk damage to the brand by delivering late.

Considering that at least 5 Amazon employees have died, I would have a hard time crying about a late package right now.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/14/sixth-confirmed-amazon-worke...

Post reply on HN