Former Montclair-Based Online Retailer Jet.com Launches

Jet.com – an online retailer that aims to take on Amazon for marketplace dominance – celebrated its multi-million dollar launch on Tuesday.

The fledgling company offers its participants – who pay an annual fee much like a Costco membership – wholesale prices for a wide range of consumer products such as groceries, beauty products, pet supplies and electronics.

In its early days, the company called an office on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair home. It’s since expanded to larger digs… the Waterfront III complex on River Street in Hoboken.

“Early this morning, we opened Jet.com to the public,” founder Marc Lore announced via social media on Tuesday. “While this moment was almost a year in the making, it marks just the beginning of our long journey.”

According to some reports, the company has raised more than $250 million in venture capital, including multi-national Chinese powerhouse, Alibaba Group.

• See related article: Montclair-Based Company Gets Large Cash Influx from Chinese Investors

Jet.com has about 100,000 trial members so far, Time reported.

See how the service works here.

A report in the Wall Street Journal cautioned that there may be years of hard financial times ahead of the startup company, however well it may be funded.

“Online marketplace Jet.com Inc. has almost no revenue, years of likely losses in its future and a strategy that includes underpricing mighty Amazon.com on millions of items… The company is absorbing steep losses on many orders filled as part of a trial run that began in March, largely because Jet hasn’t signed up enough partner merchants or opened enough warehouses to directly sell much of the merchandise shown on its website.”

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