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If the uniqueness is 'being cheaper' than Amazon then this story is not going to end well. I believe that this is a terrible way to start a business. And I woul

If the uniqueness is 'being cheaper' than Amazon then this story is not going to end well. I believe that this is a terrible way to start a business. And I would bet that they do not have the efficiencies of Amazon's scale so they are probably riding on super thin margins - there's a lot of catch up to do. But again, maybe the market is big enough to sustain another player...

CodeWriter23 11y ago
"Being cheaper" worked out pretty well for Walmart. Amazon definitely has scale, and advantages of doing things in-house. Amazon's current problem though, they have spread themselves too thin, reporting losses a quarter ago, and AWS appears to be what is carrying them now. They could be ripe for an aggressive competitor to come in and cut their throat in retail. Do to Amazon what Amazon did to Borders.
- burger_moon 11y ago
  However Jet is only cheaper because it's VC subsidized. Walmart was cheap because of their efficiency and vendor contracts (and abysmal employee conditions that followed). They were profitable from the beginning. Jet will eventually have to IPO for the investors to liquidate. I feel as a pure ecommerce store, they're going to have to be profitable or wall street will tear them up.
  - CodeWriter23 11y ago
    Not exactly, here's my comment on why Jet is cheaper. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631311
Retric 11y ago
Amazon just seems to have let it's core business slide somewhat. Sure, they are focused on efficiency, but they are trying to let customers order 1 item at a time which means huge shipping costs. A large chunk of there selection is from re-sellers which means so-so customer support, and they have a lot of other products out there, kindle, fire, AWS, even a streaming service. I think Amazon is also trying to pad their retail margins so customers don't really see the savings. Worse, they don't really have anything unique to support those margins other than a wide if somewhat padded selection. So, I doubt Jet is going to unseat them, but they are vulnerable.
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CodeWriter23 11y ago

"Being cheaper" worked out pretty well for Walmart. Amazon definitely has scale, and advantages of doing things in-house. Amazon's current problem though, they have spread themselves too thin, reporting losses a quarter ago, and AWS appears to be what is carrying them now. They could be ripe for an aggressive competitor to come in and cut their throat in retail. Do to Amazon what Amazon did to Borders.

burger_moon 11y ago
However Jet is only cheaper because it's VC subsidized. Walmart was cheap because of their efficiency and vendor contracts (and abysmal employee conditions that followed). They were profitable from the beginning. Jet will eventually have to IPO for the investors to liquidate. I feel as a pure ecommerce store, they're going to have to be profitable or wall street will tear them up.
- CodeWriter23 11y ago
  Not exactly, here's my comment on why Jet is cheaper. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10631311

Retric 11y ago

Amazon just seems to have let it's core business slide somewhat. Sure, they are focused on efficiency, but they are trying to let customers order 1 item at a time which means huge shipping costs. A large chunk of there selection is from re-sellers which means so-so customer support, and they have a lot of other products out there, kindle, fire, AWS, even a streaming service. I think Amazon is also trying to pad their retail margins so customers don't really see the savings. Worse, they don't really have anything unique to support those margins other than a wide if somewhat padded selection. So, I doubt Jet is going to unseat them, but they are vulnerable.

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