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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 mar

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.

jodah 10y ago
12B sounds like an incredible number for labs. Is there a source?
- blackaspen 10y ago
  I think it's 12Bn of investment in eCommerce, which includes but isn't solely Labs.
untog 10y ago
> Jet has a super smart team looking at ways to gain margins in areas amazon is ignoring So does Walmart Labs, though. What makes Jet a better buy? Even if they've proven successful as their own company I'm super-skeptical of any startup merging with a larger organisation and retaining anywhere near 100% efficiency.
- sremani 10y ago
  One of the way forward I see is that, Walmart will let Jet be Jet but will the major source of the products etc. Mostly growing from the back-end of it. Enabling things like same day delivery in certain instances. I would actually let Walmart groom Jet as a separate brand.
paulcole 10y ago
> Jet has a super smart team They might be smart but they haven't been successful. They almost immediately abandoned their original value proposition-- make money on the subscriptions like Costco and break even on sales.
- nostromo 10y ago
  If pivoting means you're not smart, HN would be the stupidest place on the internet.
  - Splendor 10y ago
    I think the point was the lack of success, not smarts.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - axlprose 10y ago
      And the response was clearly questioning the argument put in favor of that point, thus making the point itself questionable. It's a strange world when a startup that was just founded 2 years ago and is steadily growing [0][1][2], is considered a failure because they haven't already wiped out a 22-year-old goliath that has had a long history of struggling to break even, and operates in several other markets (AWS, Streaming Video, Devices, etc) that aren't this startup's main focus. [0] https://www.snapagency.com/blog/jet-com-vs-amazon-mean-ecommerce/ https://www.snapagency.com/blog/jet-com-vs-amazon-mean-ecomm... [1] https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/04/15/jetcom-predicts-its-sales-will-total-1-billion-may https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/04/15/jetcom-predicts-... [2] http://time.com/money/4337044/jet-com-lowest-prices-amazon-walmart-costco/ http://time.com/money/4337044/jet-com-lowest-prices-amazon-w...
      - adevine 10y ago
        My question, though, is whether Jet is "losing money on every sale but making it up in volume." That is, your articles mention how jet aims to be about 5% cheaper than Amazon, but they say nothing about the long term cost structure that would let them sell at these cheaper prices and still be profitable.
swingbridge 10y ago
The may be smart, but the business model seems to be failing. Not clear how this helps WalMart much.
MichaelGG 10y ago
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 customers using freight forwarders. When I went to purchase, the site stopped working, just providing some sort of generic error page. I called them up. A lady told me they were "performing maintenance" (middle of day). The website provided zero indication; just appeared broken. Shipping took a while. I'm certain they have smart people. But my anecdotal experience was that things were a bit clueless and not even remotely close to the level of taking on Amazon in any way.
- notyourwork 10y ago
  You seem to forget its a startup and not a well oiled industry giant that has been around for ~20 years. Maintenance to fix a security critical bug in the middle of the day to remain in compliance for credit card processing could have been a reason for this nuisance. Lots of factors and variables.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >Non-US access got blocked with a captcha Walmart.com blocks the VPN I use with a generic 403 Forbidden.
- fowlerpower 10y ago
  I'm not sure I understand, or rather I don't think you understand their business model... I think they set up their CloudFlare 100% correctly. Jet does not sell outside the U.S., they have no plans to ever sell outside they U.S. Most of the cyber attacks against them are from outside the U.S. Their entire business plan is cutting cost out of the supply chain inside the U.S. By bundling items together in the same box and saving the consumer in the U.S. Money. The entire point is to reduce the risk footprint, when most startups are being hacked left and right jet is being very smart by throwing captchas and saying to everyone outside the U.S. we don't want your scammy business.
ctvo 10y ago
Where did you get the 12bn number for Walmart Labs from? It seems quite high.
jimjimjim 10y ago
my guess is that the IT department for the whole organization for x years totals $12B. Some IT manager probably mentioned to someone near the c-suite that they were working on some cool internet commerce stuff. And then after the story has been passed on and on it gets reduced down to "$12B spent on labs"

jodah 10y ago

12B sounds like an incredible number for labs. Is there a source?

blackaspen 10y ago
I think it's 12Bn of investment in eCommerce, which includes but isn't solely Labs.

untog 10y ago

> Jet has a super smart team looking at ways to gain margins in areas amazon is ignoring So does Walmart Labs, though. What makes Jet a better buy? Even if they've proven successful as their own company I'm super-skeptical of any startup merging with a larger organisation and retaining anywhere near 100% efficiency.

sremani 10y ago
One of the way forward I see is that, Walmart will let Jet be Jet but will the major source of the products etc. Mostly growing from the back-end of it. Enabling things like same day delivery in certain instances. I would actually let Walmart groom Jet as a separate brand.

paulcole 10y ago

> Jet has a super smart team They might be smart but they haven't been successful. They almost immediately abandoned their original value proposition-- make money on the subscriptions like Costco and break even on sales.

nostromo 10y ago
If pivoting means you're not smart, HN would be the stupidest place on the internet.
- Splendor 10y ago
  I think the point was the lack of success, not smarts.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - axlprose 10y ago
    And the response was clearly questioning the argument put in favor of that point, thus making the point itself questionable. It's a strange world when a startup that was just founded 2 years ago and is steadily growing [0][1][2], is considered a failure because they haven't already wiped out a 22-year-old goliath that has had a long history of struggling to break even, and operates in several other markets (AWS, Streaming Video, Devices, etc) that aren't this startup's main focus. [0] https://www.snapagency.com/blog/jet-com-vs-amazon-mean-ecommerce/ https://www.snapagency.com/blog/jet-com-vs-amazon-mean-ecomm... [1] https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/04/15/jetcom-predicts-its-sales-will-total-1-billion-may https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/04/15/jetcom-predicts-... [2] http://time.com/money/4337044/jet-com-lowest-prices-amazon-walmart-costco/ http://time.com/money/4337044/jet-com-lowest-prices-amazon-w...
    - adevine 10y ago
      My question, though, is whether Jet is "losing money on every sale but making it up in volume." That is, your articles mention how jet aims to be about 5% cheaper than Amazon, but they say nothing about the long term cost structure that would let them sell at these cheaper prices and still be profitable.

swingbridge 10y ago

The may be smart, but the business model seems to be failing. Not clear how this helps WalMart much.

MichaelGG 10y ago

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 customers using freight forwarders. When I went to purchase, the site stopped working, just providing some sort of generic error page. I called them up. A lady told me they were "performing maintenance" (middle of day). The website provided zero indication; just appeared broken. Shipping took a while. I'm certain they have smart people. But my anecdotal experience was that things were a bit clueless and not even remotely close to the level of taking on Amazon in any way.

notyourwork 10y ago
You seem to forget its a startup and not a well oiled industry giant that has been around for ~20 years. Maintenance to fix a security critical bug in the middle of the day to remain in compliance for credit card processing could have been a reason for this nuisance. Lots of factors and variables.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
>Non-US access got blocked with a captcha Walmart.com blocks the VPN I use with a generic 403 Forbidden.
fowlerpower 10y ago
I'm not sure I understand, or rather I don't think you understand their business model... I think they set up their CloudFlare 100% correctly. Jet does not sell outside the U.S., they have no plans to ever sell outside they U.S. Most of the cyber attacks against them are from outside the U.S. Their entire business plan is cutting cost out of the supply chain inside the U.S. By bundling items together in the same box and saving the consumer in the U.S. Money. The entire point is to reduce the risk footprint, when most startups are being hacked left and right jet is being very smart by throwing captchas and saying to everyone outside the U.S. we don't want your scammy business.

ctvo 10y ago

Where did you get the 12bn number for Walmart Labs from? It seems quite high.

jimjimjim 10y ago

my guess is that the IT department for the whole organization for x years totals $12B. Some IT manager probably mentioned to someone near the c-suite that they were working on some cool internet commerce stuff. And then after the story has been passed on and on it gets reduced down to "$12B spent on labs"