The story is that Walmart bought the online retailer Jet.com to boost its online sales against Amazon.com. Well, I took a look at the Jet.com book interface and compared to Amazon, and there’s no contest. Amazon has been selling books online for a long time and they have a rock-solid infrastructure. I didn’t count their total number of book categories and subcategories, but they far surpass anything Jet has. Just one brief example: Jet doesn’t even have a general nonfiction category. Amazon’s pricing is straightforward and free shipping on most books if you’re a prime customer. Jet has a distracting multi-level pricing policy. Here’s a screen shot of Jet’s book pricing:
So if you bought five books, opted out of returns, pay by debit card, you save a glorious 89 cents on the first book. Buying online is more of an impulse deal than trying to decipher this stuff. Amazon makes it sooo easy. Back to the drawing board, Walmart.
