On Tuesday 21 July, Jet.com officially launched, promising shoppers the “lowest prices on everything”. On the day of launch, Profitero analyzed more than 16,000 exactly-matched products across 7 categories on Jet, Amazon and Walmart and found that Jet was priced an average of 9% lower than Amazon and 6% lower than Walmart.
Profitero’s Keith Anderson was one of the first 10,000 users to test Jet.com in beta and provided his initial first impressions of the upstart shopping site in an earlier post. Now Jet has finally launched to the wider public, Profitero carried out analysis on its first day of sales to determine whether the online shopping club really does live up to its hype.
On exactly-matched products, Jet was priced an average of 9% lower than Amazon
On July 21 2015, Profitero analyzed 16,028 matching products across 7 categories on Jet, Amazon, and Walmart. On exactly-matched products, Jet was priced an average of 9% lower than Amazon and 6% lower than Walmart.
In Profitero’s methodology, “exact matches” are products that are identical (same UPC, brand, and pack configuration). It’s important to note that all pricing analyses do not consider extra discounts at Jet from combined orders, waived returns and preferred payment methods.
Price Comparison Between Jet, Amazon and Walmart
Our analysis reveals that Jet’s pricing was slightly closer to its competitors in higher-priced categories, although Jet was still, on average, cheaper. For example, Jet was priced 6% lower than Amazon on electronics products, compared to 9% lower across the 7 categories analyzed.
Notes: Products studied were in-stock and sold by all three retailers; Percentages do not sum to 100% since some products were priced the same between retailers
On average, Jet was priced lower than Amazon on its best-selling products
We also analyzed Jet’s pricing on Amazon’s best-selling products – those Amazon products with a best seller ranking of 20 or below in their respective categories – and found:
- Jet was, on average, priced 8% lower than Amazon even on Amazon’s best-selling products
- In some categories, Jet’s pricing on Amazon’s top 20 best sellers was closer to Amazon’s; for best sellers in the Household category, for example, Jet was priced 8% lower than Amazon, compared to 12% lower on non-top-20 Household products
However, Jet is not cheapest across the board
While Jet.com was priced on average 9% lower than Amazon and 6% lower than Walmart on exactly-matched products in the 7 categories we analyzed, this certainly isn’t the case across all products. There was a percentage of products in every category, particularly electronics and office supplies, where Jet was more expensive.
For certain products, such as VIZIO Flat-Panel TVs M-Series 55 in., we see that Jet.com is more expensive than both Amazon and Walmart (Jet Price: $1221.99, Amazon Price: $948.00, Walmart Price: $948.00).
According to Profitero’s VP Strategy & Insights Keith Anderson: “Although there is no clear winner on price, it is clear that Jet is pricing aggressively at launch, especially on key household essentials such as Baby, Beauty, Pet Supplies, and Household products. Price competition is at the center of Jet’s strategy, and the price comparisons Jet includes on its own product pages are likely to intensify competition.”
Online retail pricing is increasingly dynamic and transparent and Profitero expects all three retailers’ pricing strategies (and the broader market) will continue to evolve. Profitero will continue to monitor and analyze the landscape – so look out for further updates. In the meantime, increased competition is ultimately good news for shoppers as they are set to benefit from lower prices.
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