It’s easy to sell on Amazon because they’ve been around so long and you know what you’re getting into (both good and bad). But taking a chance on new players to the ecommerce game, can sometimes have unexpected payoffs. RepricerExpress is here to explore whether Jet.com is one of those marketplaces that can potentially change the selling landscape the way Amazon, eBay and Alibaba have.
Getting to Know Jet.com
In the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen the rise of ‘super stores’ like Costco and Walmart, shops that purport to offer bigger selections and higher savings. And then the rise of online giants like Amazon and eBay further chopped prices by bringing everything online and vastly reducing overhead.
Enter Jet.com, the newest player on the scene that hopes to usurp some of the power Amazon’s earned. It’s founded by Marc Lore — you may remember him from such ventures as Quidsi and the Topps Company. When he started up Jet.com, his aim was to offer retail items at, or below, the cost you’d find at Walmart and Amazon.
And up until recently, there was a $50/year membership fee which has since been disbanded.
One key difference between Amazon and Jet.com is the former has its own retail supply channels, while the latter gets its items from third-party vendors (although Amazon also sometimes dips into third-party suppliers, too).
Does it Make Sense to Sell (or Buy) on Jet.com?
Let’s focus first on buying on Jet.com. The upside, like we briefly mentioned before, is that you can find a great deal of items on the site at the same price, or less, than you would at Walmart or Amazon. And the site has grown considerably since its inception, surging to a million customers after just its first three months of existence and registering a $500 million funding round. These are fairly positive signs that Jet.com has made serious inroads into the marketplace world, with good and (so far) proven intentions of being attractive enough to cater to customers’ needs.
And as for selling? Jet.com, at first blush, appears to have done a decent job on that, too. To sell there, you need to meet the following requirements:
- Possess a U.S. Business Tax ID Number (or a valid U.S. SSN number if you’re a sole proprietor)
- Have a working bank account
- Check off the box that says you agree to the their Retail Partner Agreement & Policies
- Sell branded products (and avoiding selling things on their banned list)
- And agree to uphold Jet.com’s ‘Excellent Fulfillment & Delivery Performance’ standard
Unlike other marketplaces, Jet.com won’t charge you signup fees, monthly fees or listing fees to sell. How they’ll make money is by taking a commission from you once your sold items are fulfilled, with the types of commission fees available here. And while it’s not exactly clear how they’ll continue to make money since they eliminated their yearly user subscription fee, companies like Uber have made oodles of dough by only charging commissions, so we’ll see.
While we can’t recommend that you set up shop solely on Jet.com (and this is something we’d apply to any marketplace, even Amazon, as it’s not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket), it can be a decent place to expand and diversify your selling channels. Try starting off with a sort of ‘sampler selection’ of your inventory and see how that goes before putting up more items. With no fees and only a commission, it’s a fairly low-risk way of testing out whether or not Jet.com will work for you. Just make sure to follow all the other practices we’ve outlined before (marketing, advertising, social media integration, etc.).
Final Thoughts
If you find that Jet.com becomes a good channel for you to sell on, you’ll need to be prepared to deal with the new uptick in business. Enter, RepricerExpress. We’ll help you take care of changing your listing prices so you can always compete aggressively, but you’ll have to sign up for your free 15-day trial first.
