International retailer Walmart has bought online eCommerce platform jet.com for $3 billion in cash with another $300 million in stock. Jet.com is notorious for taking on eCommerce heavyweight Amazon.com by offering the same basic business principles to its customers. Convenient everyday items at a low cost. Convenience comes from shipping it directly to your home so the customer has to do the least work possible.
Jet.com, which has only been live for a little over a year, has already made big strides in conquering the eCommerce digital platform. Their strategy is simple, sell the same high-quality everyday items but at a cheaper price than their competitors. Research found that even a 5% decrease in price had consumers switching over to Jet.com and without pricey subscriptions, consumers have been staying. They have a growing customer base of urban and millennial consumers with more than 400,000 new customers added monthly and an average of 25,000 orders processed daily. Jet.com utilizes best-in-class technology that rewards customers with real time savings on products that are usually bought and shipped together. This allows for supply chain costs, which are usually a hidden cost from consumers, making products cheaper overall.
While Walmart buying Jet.com may seem like Walmart taking over online eCommerce, Walmart and Jet.com will remain two distinct brands and identities. Walmart and Jet.com will combine their technologies and tech intelligence to “develop new offerings to help customers save time and money” Walmart eCommerce sales totaled $14 billion, or just 3% of its $482 billion in annual revenue. With this new acquisition, Walmart can utilize Jet.com’s successful eCommerce algorithm to reach even more consumers than they already do. Furthermore, Jet.com already does what Walmart wishes to do which is looking at purchases in terms of the total “basket”, or everything purchased together, not individual items. As customers add items into their carts, the prices get cheaper.
While this acquisition will not only benefit Walmart and Jet.com, customers are ultimately the winners. As jet.com utilizes Walmarts supply chain and distribution channels, Walmart will try to adopt Jet.com’s business algorithm and also utilize their “basket” strategy. Products at a discounted rate mean the customer wins in the end. What about smaller eCommerce businesses who have traditional business strategies?
It seems that this Walmart and Jet.com acquisition doesn’t look too good for smaller eCommerce platforms. With a major powerhouse and young gun joining forces, how will it affect smaller eCommerce businesses that can’t utilize large distribution channels and don’t adopt the “basket” strategy? However, smaller eCommerce retailers that sell specific items to niche markets shouldn’t be affected too much as they sell products that are highly specialized products and targeting certain consumers.
Smaller eCommerce businesses should brace themselves for an impact on their sales. Walmart and Jet.com have made it easier to shop for everyday products at a bulk rate ultimately lowering the costs for consumers. We can only assume as Walmart’s eCommerce algorithms will change and Jet.com, now able to use Walmart’s distribution channels, will make it easier for consumers to get their purchases faster and cheaper.
The driving force behind this major acquisition is the convenience to the customer. As technology develops, more and more eCommerce retailers are looking for ways to bring convenience to their customers in any possible way. This means smaller eCommerce companies should adapt to the changes if they want to compete with major retailers like Walmart and Jet.com. eCommerce retailers will have to focus their business strategies on convenience for the consumers.
Editorial note (updated): this article was originally written when Walmart acquired Jet.com in 2016. Walmart wound down Jet.com and shut the site in 2020, folding its technology and talent into Walmart.com. We have kept the original analysis intact because the strategic lesson — how marketplace giants compete and what that means for independent stores — long outlived Jet.com itself. The section below reframes it for today.
The durable lesson, not the headline
The Jet.com story aged out in four years; the dynamic it illustrated did not. The acquisition was Walmart buying convenience economics and "total basket" pricing logic to compete with Amazon. Today the same pressure comes from Walmart Marketplace, Amazon, Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop. The strategic question for an independent merchant is unchanged: you will not win on price, breadth, or shipping speed against a company with a national distribution network — so you must win on the things they structurally cannot do well.
What independent stores can actually compete on
- Specificity and curation. Marketplaces optimize for breadth; that makes them shallow in any given niche. A store that knows one category deeply — with genuine buying guidance, curated assortment, and expert content — beats an infinite catalog for high-consideration purchases.
- Brand and trust. Marketplace listings are interchangeable and price-anchored. A brand customers seek out by name escapes that race. Content marketing and a distinct point of view are how that brand gets built.
- Owned audience. Email and SMS lists, loyalty, and community are channels a marketplace algorithm cannot tax or take away. The merchants who survive marketplace pressure are the ones who do not rent their entire customer relationship.
- Experience. Faster, clearer product pages, honest descriptions, easy returns, and responsive service convert the considered buyer who is not just chasing the lowest price.
A practical defensive playbook
- Decide where you are deliberately not competing (raw price on commodity SKUs) and where you are (expertise, curation, service).
- Build content that earns the high-intent, specific searches the giants under-serve — the long-tail buying questions, not the head terms.
- Convert that traffic into an owned audience (email/SMS) on the first visit, not the fifth.
- Use the marketplaces tactically as an acquisition channel if it suits the catalog — but never as the only relationship you have with the customer.
Why the niche stores survived — and the lesson that held up
The original article predicted that highly specialized retailers selling to defined audiences would be least affected, and broadly that has held: the independent stores that struggled most after marketplace consolidation were the ones selling commodity goods on price alone, exactly the ground the giants own. The ones that thrived owned a category, a point of view, and a direct customer relationship. That is the single most important takeaway and it is more true now, with even more well-funded marketplaces, than it was in 2016.
Frequently asked questions
Should my store sell on Walmart Marketplace or Amazon too? It can be a sensible acquisition channel if your margins survive the fees and you are disciplined about converting marketplace buyers into owned-audience customers afterward. The danger is dependence: if a marketplace is your only customer relationship, an algorithm or policy change can erase your business overnight. Treat marketplaces as one channel, never the whole strategy.
How can a small store compete on shipping speed? You usually cannot win the speed race, so do not frame it as one. Win on accurate expectations (say two days and deliver in two days), generous and frictionless returns, and proactive communication. Reliability and trust convert the considered buyer better than a one-day-faster promise you cannot keep.
What is the first move if a giant enters my category? Double down on the content and curation a broad catalog cannot match, and accelerate building your owned email/SMS audience so your demand is not entirely rented from someone else's algorithm.
The Walmart–Jet deal was a signal that scale players keep buying convenience. The answer for everyone else is differentiation. We help independent stores build exactly that defensible position through eCommerce SEO, content marketing, and retention email. Talk to us about your niche.