Update: Walmart Acquires Jet.com for $3 Billion
Update: Walmart & Jet announced the acquisition today. The sale price was $3 billion in cash and $300 million in Walmart shares.
8/3/2016: Just over a week after its first birthday, Jet is reportedly in talks to sell to Walmart, the Wall Street Journal reports. Acquiring the VC-backed e-commerce site could help the retailer close the gap between itself and Amazon in its quest to boost its share of online shopping.
Jet, which started as a subscription service but quickly dropped that to focus on the "smart cart" —an algorithm of basket size, shipping options and merchandise proximity to buyers, to name a few factors—could be a boon to Walmart, whose mantra is "always low prices."
Walmart has made concerted efforts to gain market share in the online shopping realm, including offering a Prime-like membership and utilizing robots and drones. The deal could be worth $3 billion.
- Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com [paywall] | Wall Street Journal
- Wal-Mart reportedly in negotiations to acquire Jet | Retail Dive
