不成功但不放弃，这家公司仍在挑战亚马逊

一年前的昨天，以亚马逊为目标的电子商务新星Jet.com开门营业。此前该公司获得了数亿美元投资，并在开业前做了大量宣传。还未卖出一个钱包、一个微波炉或者一瓶洗衣液，Jet.com的价值就已经达到近6亿美元。

然而，过去的一年挑战重重。Jet.com被迫调整了策略，应付了该公司花钱无度却无明确盈利模式的报道，还和知名品牌发生了冲突。

不过，尽管起步有些磕磕绊绊，但创始人马克·洛尔的乐观情绪似乎没有任何减退，他依然相信亚马逊主导下的电商行业还有另一家企业的位置。

洛尔接受《财富》杂志采访时表示：“从未出现过赢家通吃的市场。一定会有真正的第二、第三和第四大公司，而我们将成为其中之一。”

他举例说，Jet.com的销售额已经是六个月前的三倍。去年12月，该公司售出了3,300万美元的商品；今年5月这个数字则为9,000万美元。

洛尔指出：“我们的年销售规模可达11亿美元。”这里他采用了一个普遍但模糊的硅谷业绩指标，也就是用最近一个月的表现来推算今后的收入规模。“我们的增长率高的没治了。”

Jet.com曾于2015年7月推出了会员制网站，目的是在和亚马逊的大批量售卖业务展开竞争的同时，挑战山姆会员店以及好市多等实体仓储式超市。缴纳50美元的年费后，该网站用户就可以购买尿布、清洁和体育用品，Jet.com承诺这些商品的价格会比任何网站都低10%-15%。

然而，Jet.com在2015年10月放弃了50美元一年的会员制，当时这是它获取利润的唯一方法。由于商品都打了10%左右的折扣，销售额不会让Jet.com盈利。但该公司表示，消费者仍对4%-5%的折扣感到满意，它也得以通过销售厕纸和尿布等产品赚取利润。

Jet.com开业之际，其他一些警示信号也表明麻烦将至。《华尔街日报》在该公司网站上线前进行了试用。他们购买了22件商品，其中12件由零售商直接发货，并没有经过Jet.com。这12件商品总价275.55美元，但《华尔街日报》估算，这笔订单让Jet.com损失了242.91美元。

除了价格较低，Jet.com和亚马逊的另一大不同点是它把宝押在了动态定价上。也就是说，Jet.com上的商品价格会根据消费者购买的物品而改变。举例来说，如果顾客买下的商品放在不同的仓库，最终价格就会较高，原因是为了分别包装和发运这些商品，卖家要花较多的钱。反过来，Jet.com通过较低的价格来鼓励消费者在附近的一个仓库购买多件商品。如果消费者放弃不想要的商品的退货权，也会获得折扣。

一年来，这项策略一直未变。洛尔和Jet.com首席客户官莉莎·兰兹曼上周四表示，到目前为止该策略一直很成功。实际上，兰兹曼还说该公司将推出更多类似的激励措施，其中可能包括和制造商分享邮件以及延长交付时间，以便让消费者获得较低的价格。

食品杂货一直是Jet.com试水的另一个领域。今年4月，该公司悄悄地在纽约市、新泽西州、华盛顿市、康涅狄格州以及宾夕法尼亚州尝试进入食品杂货领域，覆盖范围包括875个邮递区号。除了牛奶、水果、蔬菜、麦片和罐装食品外，还有其他许多商品可供选择。

兰兹曼说，涉足食品杂货这项低利润率业务的原因是这些商品往往会带来回头客，而且这些顾客或许还会购买非食品杂货类商品。

洛尔表示，Jet.com还一直致力于提供某些种类的食品，比如不含谷蛋白的食品、洁食认证食品以及印度和中国食品。他说，人们愿意为这些较难找到的商品支付较高的价格，而这对Jet.com来说意味着较高的利润率。食品杂货派送范围已经覆盖1500个邮递区号，而且还在延伸。同时，Jet.com将使用可返还的食品杂货包装箱，或者说，顾客可以把装食品的快递箱子返还，从而降低成本。

最后，Jet.com预计将效仿亚马逊，向消费者推出自有品牌的尿布等产品。亚马逊已经开始出售自己的咖啡、婴儿食品和服装，这有可能让它的利润率超过经销其他制造商的产品。

洛尔指出：“我们当然正在为此进行准备。”他还说，这样的机会“唾手可得”。Jet.com打算开发自有品牌产品的领域包括健康和美容、婴儿产品以及食品日杂。

虽然洛尔为Jet.com描述了光明的未来，但这家初创公司的资金将在多久以后耗尽以及它什么时候盈利仍是个问题。洛尔仍预计Jet.com将在2020年实现盈利，也就是整整三年半以后。他说，今年晚些时候Jet.com才有可能再次融资。去年11月该公司曾筹集资金6.18亿美元，此前还曾融资近3亿美元。洛尔指出：“我们有财力雄厚的投资者，而且现有投资者的需求足以让我们的下一轮融资满载而归。”

洛尔相信，要建立一家可以从规模上和亚马逊抗衡的电商公司需要大量资金。对此他从不掩饰。他说：“烧钱的公司不会成功是一种错误观念。今后我们会实现盈利，但这需要时间。”

研究咨询机构Forrester Research分析师苏恰利塔·穆尔普鲁也认为，接近亚马逊的规模需要大量资金和尝试。她指出：“Jet.com要用很长时间来做到这一点。他们和亚马逊的差距是如此之大，两家公司甚至都不在同一竞争层面上。” （财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

A year ago yesterday, Jet.com, the e-commerce upstart gunning for Amazon, opened for business. It premiered with a huge amount of hype after getting hundreds of millions in funding and a nearly $600 million valuation before selling a single purse, microwave, or bottle of laundry detergent.

But the past year has been filled with challenges. The company has been forced to shift strategies, weathered reports that it was bleeding cash with no clear path to profitability, and scuffled with high profile brands.

But despite the sometimes rocky start, founder Marc Lore doesn’t seem to have lost any optimism about there being room for an e-commerce marketplace in a world dominated by Amazon.

“This has never been a winner take all market,” Lore said in an interview with Fortune. “There will be a really large No. 2, 3, and 4, and we can be one of those.”

As proof, he said Jet’s sales have tripled in the past six months. In December, it sold $33 million in merchandise compared with $90 million in May.

“We’re on a $1.1 billion run rate,” he said, using a popular but fuzzy Silicon Valley business metric that extrapolates future revenue based on results in the latest month. “Our growth rate is off the charts.”

Jet originally launched its membership-based e-commerce site in July 2015 to take on brick and mortar warehouse clubs like Sam’s Club and Costco while also competing against Amazon’s bulk products business. For a $50 annual membership, Jet members could buy diapers, cleaning supplies, and sporting goods, promising prices 10% to 15% below elsewhere online.

But in October, Jet dropped its $50 membership fee, which at the time was of its only ways to make a profit. Because of the discounted prices of around 10% on items, Jet doesn’t make a profit on its sales. But the company said that customers were still happy with 4% or 5% discounts, allowing the company to make some money from selling items like toilet paper and diapers.

There were some other red flags around Jet’s debut that hinted at trouble to come. The Wall Street Journal tested Jet prior to its public launch by buying 22 items, 12 of which were shipped by retailers directly rather than Jet handling the shipping. The prices for those 12 items totaled $275.55. But Jet lost an estimated $242.91 in the sale, according to the Journal.

Besides the lower prices, Jet’s other key differentiator from Amazon is betting on dynamic pricing—meaning the price of items changes depending on what shoppers buy. For example, if shoppers buy multiple items that are in different warehouses, shoppers end up paying more because merchants have to spend more on packaging and shipping the items individually. Conversely, Jet encourages customers through lower prices to buy multiple items that are in a warehouse nearby. Discounts are also offered if the customer forgoes the possibility returning of products they decide against keeping.

This strategy has remained consistent over the past year, and Lore and the company’s chief customer officer, Liza Landsman, said Thursday that this has been successful so far. In fact, Landsman said the company will start offering more of these incentives to lower prices for customers including possibly sharing emails with manufacturers or opting for a longer shipment window.

Groceries has also been another area where Jet has been testing the waters. In April, it quietly started testing an expansion into groceries sales in 875 zip codes in New York City, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Milk, fruits, vegetables, cereal, and canned goods are just some of the items available.

The reasoning for expanding into groceries, a low margin business, is that they tend to draw repeat customers, said Landsman. And these customers may ending up buying other non-grocery items.

Lore said that the company has also focused on offering specialty categories of food such as gluten-free, Kosher food, and Indian and Chinese foods. People are willing to spend more on these harder to find items, and that means higher margins for Jet, he said. Grocery deliveries have been expanded to 1,500 zip codes, with more being added. Jet will also start using returnable shipping containers with groceries, meaning customers can return the containers the food was shipped and delivered in to cut costs.

Lastly, expect to see Jet follow in Amazon’s footsteps, creating private-label brands of diapers and more to sell to customers. Amazon has started to sell its own coffee, baby food and clothing that open the door to higher profit margins than reselling products produced by others.

“It’s absolutely something we have in the works,” said Lore, calling the opportunity “low hanging fruit.” Some of the areas where Jet will be developing their own products include health and beauty, baby, and groceries.

Although Lore paints a bright future for Jet, there’s still the question of how quickly the startup is burning its cash, and when it will become profitable. He still projects profitability in 2020 – a full three and a half years from now—and says that he is unlikely to raise another round of funding until later this year. In November, the startup raised $618 million in new funding on top of nearly $300 million raised previously. “We’ve got deep pocketed investors and we have enough demand from existing investors to fill the next round,” he said.

Lore hasn’t been shy about his belief that creating an e-commerce company that can compete at the scale of Amazon requires a lot of money. “It’s a misconception that if a company is burning cash, it’s not going to make it. We will become profitable in the future, but it will take time.” he said.

Sucharita Mulpuru, analyst at Forrester Research, agrees that it will take a lot of capital and experimentation to come close to Amazon’s scale. “It’s going to take a lot of time for Jet,” she said. “They are so far behind Amazon, they are not even in the same playing field.”