Washington---Jet.com has yet to launch its online retail site to the public, but has already drawn attention as a would-be game-changer that could take on Internet giant Amazon.
Jet has raised $220 million so far for an ecommerce service with some 1,600 retail partners, and plans to sell some 10 million products when it launches in the coming weeks.
The startup will charge $49 a year for membership to allow consumers to get "the lowest price on anything they buy online," according to a Jet spokesman.
With Jet.com in its beta testing phase, a number of media reports showed that its prices on goods ranging from electronics to household products are lower than those of Amazon.
Jet says it sees opportunities, while downplaying the rivalry with Amazon.
"With only eight percent of retail sales currently happening online, we believe the ecommerce market still has plenty of room for new companies, innovation and growth," a spokesman told AFP by email.
"Jet isn't attempting to compete with other large e-commerce players or be crushed by them, the e-commerce market is large enough for many different companies to exist and be successful simultaneously."
Jet will use dynamic pricing which can change with the number of items placed in a basket. This is done by a team of engineers who are "constantly recalculating which seller can send that entire order to you most efficiently and cheaply," the spokesman said.
Jet is led by Marc Lore, a founder of online retailer Quidsi -- including diapers.com and soap.com -- sold to Amazon in 2011 for $545 million.
Lore said in a recent blog posting that "we believe that there is big opportunity to deliver meaningful value to mass consumers by optimizing the underlying economics of online shopping and unbundling the embedded retail costs that drive up price."
- Figuring out the box -
It remains unclear if Jet.com can have an impact, but Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru says the company has a fighting chance.
"My impression is there is an opportunity for another Web player to do something disruptive and give local merchants a chance," she told AFP.
Mulpuru said Lore's previous company had a good user interface and was efficient in other areas such as "figuring out exactly what you can fit into a box."
"If anyone can pull it off, it's this guy and these investors," she said.
"They're a smart group and they know something about ecommerce. If they can just hold their own and not have a bloody financial loss day after day, they will have won."
AFP
