Before everyone gets up in a big frenzy on the price, read the article (closely):
"It isn’t clear how much Wal-Mart would pay, but a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets."
That is nowhere near a statement that $3B is number from Wal-Mart. That means "someone" thinks they COULD be valued at UP TO $3B in "private markets". That "someone" could be Jet's CEO. Or their banker.
Wal-Mart isn't dumb. In fact, they're the opposite of dumb when it comes to paying for things. They wouldn't pay $3B for a failed ecommerce startup if they can let it fail and buy the assets or pay much, much less in various other scenarios.
I doubt we'll see this deal go for anywhere close to $3B, if it happens at all. This is likely a negotaition tactic to drum up interest (and/or the price) from other potential acquirers.
Jet is growing at a staggering rate month over month. They are at over 1.1 billion in sales annually in under a year. Yes, while spending money to do it, but you can't magically get paying loyal customers without any advertising or incentives. Amazon didn't do it by making money either.
Amazon is at roughly 86 billion (I'm sure it's more) in sales online, Walmart is at 12 billion online. Amazon is growing in the double digits Walmart is in the single digits online. How is Walmart going to catch them?
If jet is at 4 million+ loyal customers in a years time being live, how exactly is it dumb to buy a company that is at 1.1 billion in sales in a years time when it took you 10 years to get to that? How long has Walmart been selling online? Jet will pass Walmart in under 2 years, then what will Walmart do to beat Amazon?
I think people on hacker news live in la la land. Ecommerce is very different from your googles and facebooks.
Marc Lore knows exactly what he's doing, he probably won't sell it to Walmart for that little.
I doubt many of them are loyal. Most ordered from Jet due to huge discount codes, making them the cheapest. I'd love to see how many people place a second order, one with no discount code.
What is it with people on hacker news? You all love Amazon or something? Chances are a lot of them are coming back because their system, at jet, is guaranteed to be cheaper if you buy multiple things. It is why they have double the order size when compared to Amazon, at least according to the news articles.
Amazon is about to close down every Walmart in America. They are going to shut down the number one employer in the whole country. It is absolutely on its way.
I for one hope we have a few players in this space.
> Real, sustainable competition is what makes capitalism great. Jet spending $800mm+ in a year and taking a loss on every sale is not sustainable.
OTOH, spending and taking losses like that is often the cost of breaking into a business with established competition, even if you have a fundamentally better model -- a bit part of what every business wants to do is establish the kind of "moat" that makes that kind of thing necessary for any would-be new competitor.
What is to stop Amazon from duplicating this modal if it gets traction? What is their moat?
Amazon released Prime Now about 9 months after Google Express and will copy any other successful e commerce trend and do it way better than another startup.
Before everyone gets up in a big frenzy on the price, read the article (closely):
"It isn’t clear how much Wal-Mart would pay, but a person familiar with the matter said Jet could be valued at up to $3 billion in private markets."
That is nowhere near a statement that $3B is number from Wal-Mart. That means "someone" thinks they COULD be valued at UP TO $3B in "private markets". That "someone" could be Jet's CEO. Or their banker.
Wal-Mart isn't dumb. In fact, they're the opposite of dumb when it comes to paying for things. They wouldn't pay $3B for a failed ecommerce startup if they can let it fail and buy the assets or pay much, much less in various other scenarios.
I doubt we'll see this deal go for anywhere close to $3B, if it happens at all. This is likely a negotaition tactic to drum up interest (and/or the price) from other potential acquirers.