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Comment by berberous | Hacker News Reader

How do you know what Jet paid for the chair?

I looked around and compared prices. Nothing was cheaper than $160. Plus the package was shipped directly to me from the place that Jet got it from... which was ibuyofficesupply.com

Edit: I was asked why I think Jet paid full retail price... I can't know that for sure obviously. There was a packing slip that I didn't think to look at. In any case, the only way they don't lose money is if they bought it for close to 50% off. Seems unlikely to me.

Why do you think that Jet payed full retail price?

Its more likely Jet drop-shipped it, and that's their supplier.

2x is entirely reasonable markup on a piece of furniture, particularly if they bought it in bulk. There's just no way they are selling merchandise at a 40% loss per unit.

My understanding from interviews with employees and they use volume, logistics and other factors to leverage a better deal that they pass off entirely to the customer. (They make their profits off the membership as I recall)

I think this was the original plan, but they dropped the membership fee and have since raised several hundreds of millions to continue operating. Hence all of the head scratching about their financial prospects.

Furniture has huge markups (in the few 100s of %). Just check how much it costs to order small (25 to 100) runs on Alibaba.

I bought an item from Jet once that came with a receipt from GNC for around $10 more than what I paid for it.

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