Walmart buys startup to fight Amazon

São Paulo-Walmart announced today, 8, the acquisition of Jet.com, e-commerce startup, for $ 3 billion in cash and another $ 300,000,000 in actions.
The purchase will boost sales through the website or application and to accelerated growth of its biggest competitor, Amazon.
At the last conference call with analysts, CEO of Walmart Doug McMillon said that online sales evolve very slowly and that the company needed to expand the number of products sold and platform partners.
With the billion dollar acquisition, "we are seeking ways to cut prices, expand the assortment and offer the shopping experience as simple and easy as possible, because that''s what consumers want," he said.
The company finds it difficult to keep up with the rapid evolution of the rival, which raises a loyal following – and paying.
The number of subscribers from Amazon, called Prime, exceeded the non-paying, while accessing 63,000,000 in June. With deliveries up to 1 hour and special discounts, they have little reason for shopping at competitors.
While Walmart made $ 14 billion with online sales last year, or just 3% of the total revenue, revenue was $ 107 billion, including the cloud service.
Unicorn
The Jet.com can help in this dispute, for being the fastest growing electronic trades. Released in 2015, reached in little time and 12,000,000 unique users per month.
At a very young age, joined the select group of startups that have market value of more than $ 1 billion, the so-called "unicorns".
The website receives around 400,000 new customers every month and 25,000 requests every day and promises prices 10% to 15% lower than those of competitors. The promise certainly drew attention, albeit at the cost of $ 1,000,000 in marketing.
To reduce costs, offers discounts for large orders, with many goods sent together. The marketplace has more than 2,400 retailers.
The founders of startup are Marc Lore, Mike Hanrahan and Nate Faust.
Lore, who is now CEO of Jet, founded the Quidsi, company owner of Diapers.com, Soap.com and Wag.com sites and sold. He will have a leading position in on-line sales division at Walmart, and the current Executive, Neil Ashe, will leave the company, said the Wall Street Journal.
Walmart and Jet will continue as separate brands. While the giant will maintain its strategy of low prices every day, the Jet will seek to attract young people with product selection and shopping experience geared to this audience.
The startup still gain access to the infrastructure of the retailer, as the 7 distribution centers in the United States. The operation needs to be approved by regulators.