I use Jet on a regular basis. I try to avoid Amazon wherever possible, they're good but they have too much power so I try to help any alternative. Their selection isn't as good as Amazon, but usually it arrives quicker. Books are not quick, but cheaper than BN (even though BN ships them)

They must be burning lots of cash though. I placed a $100 order with about 7 items and it came in 6 different boxes.

> They must be burning lots of cash though. I placed a $100 order with about 7 items and it came in 6 different boxes.

It's an interesting business model for sure. They were spending $20-25m a month on advertising and then on top of that is selling things for less than they cost.

That's interesting. Mine have always arrived together in one box per order. Are you ordering a lot of books or some broad variety of items?

Yes was a variety, all came from different retailers.

I should add if Jet is now Walmart they aren't the small guys any more. Anyone have any alternatives?

Do you have any reason beyond principle to only use "small guys"?

I don't know if Jet was a "small guy" before the acquisition either if they had a 1B valuation. Plus pricing at a loss to get market share and compete with Amazon or get acquired by Walmart isn't really a small guy business plan. My idea of small guys I'd want to help is a local mom and pop stores. Maybe that guy likes the idea of helping start-ups though? It's his money

At this point, it's a generalized online marketplace that has been successful enough that some of the general public has heard of it and used it. 3B is QUITE a bit of money, I agree, but from a name and branding perspective in the age of Amazon, Jet has already made an impressive amount of progress where SO many others have failed.

I use them pretty regularly, since I discontinued my Amazon Prime membership. Amazon without Prime is a shipping fee quagmire. Jet is terrible for ordering books, but other than that they are pretty prompt on delivering stuff within 2 days. You get discount for using debit card (1.5%) and using a larger cart drops prices(which stops after you added a bunch of items).

Amazon also gives you free shipping once you spend above $49. And if you have a business account you get two day shipping as well at the same threshold.

True, but every time I choose that option Amazon takes a week before they even ship anything. (it then arrives in a few days) Back before prime everything I ordered from Amazon shipped next day, or I got an out of stock email and the rest shipped the next day and arrived in a few days. Sure free shipping was advertised as whenever, but the reality was free shipping used to mean about a week not it means 2 weeks to a month. This is a massive loss in satisfaction. There are many things that waiting a week is acceptable, but two weeks is beyond what I'm able to plan in advance for.

I have never ordered enough from amazon to make prime worth considering. The troubles I've had lately mean I just assume Amazon won't ship in time and so once I see something on amazon that I think I want I look to see who else sells it. I'll pay $.50 extra to have it shipped the next day.

Get a business account and order more than $49 at a time and you'll get free two day shipping.

Also, note that Amazon may take time to ship because they're sending it between their warehouses to ship from a closer location. For popular items they'll likely already have one near you, but for less popular ones they move it around before final delivery. So just because it takes time to ship doesn't mean it won't arrive as fast as other options. What counts is the expected delivery time, which is given when you order.

But it doesn't work for items from third party sellers that don't participate in Fulfillment by Amazon. Jet's has no such restriction.

Jet's third party sellers will just add shipping into their cost. You aren't getting the discount unless the items are shipping together.

I see this as Wal-Mart buying their place into the online market. It's hard for a company like that to be able to spin up an entire division, and do it right.

A cynical person might also believe Jet created itself to be sold off in this very way, too.

To be fair, I installed the Walmart mobile app as well as Jet over the weekend. The Walmart experience is miles ahead. Pricing was also better, and Walmart has better pricing than Amazon on a lot of things lately. I'm not sure that they're 'buying' their place, because it seems to me they're ahead of the game on anything but name

Walmart's e-commerce growth has been declining every quarter, except Q4 2014 where it jumped +1%, since the beginning of 2014.

http://fortune.com/2016/05/20/the-silver-lining-in-walmarts-...

Walmart has been rapidly growing their eCommerce operation for several years, the only difference in the past this has been done via multiple smaller acquisitions per year, rather than by huge ones.

I use them regularly. Mostly for items that are cheaper than from Amazon. Also with money from their cash back program, Jet Anywhere.

I would suspect one portion of it is their dynamic pricing model. I wish there were more info publicly available about the mechanics.

> I would suspect one portion of it is their dynamic pricing model. I wish there were more info publicly available about the mechanics.

It's a pretty simple transfer of VC money to customers in an attempt to increase growth.

> It's a pretty simple transfer of VC money to customers in an attempt to increase growth.

I guess it worked.

I am. However, it depends on if you're a current Prime user or not.

If you don't have Amazon's Prime, you'll see why Jet.com is worth it.

Amazon's free shipping for non-prime users are now 50$, takes 2-3 weeks to get anything, and they're limited the good deals to Prime users.

I've bought more from Jet.com than Amazon lately because the above issues.

If I was willing to pay 100$ for Prime, Jet.com isn't worth it.

My wife does. She's probably ordered from them between 10-20 times. I mentioned them to her and she uses them now and then when she realizes Amazon is overcharging for something.

Clearly she's mostly loyal to Amazon.

I have been using them more and more lately for random household essentials, since their prices beat Amazon a lot of the time, and shipping is typically 2-days, which is pretty good.