Mashable reports that Walmart-owned Jet, which has been aggressive in positioning Walmart to be more competitive with archrival Amazon, has "opened a limited-time artisanal grocery and household accessory store in New York on Wednesday in a partnership with concept-based retailer Story.
"The store will combine some of the e-commerce company's tech prowess with Story's chic decor and eclectic product assortment. The location will also host events featuring big names like celebrity chef Mario Batali and make-up mogul Bobbi Brown."
According to the story, "Jet president Liza Landsman said the company has no plans to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint beyond the temporary storefront ... Landsman says Jet sees the store as a way to showcase what the site has to offer in terms of fresh produce and other foods. She says the company's custom-designed fresh-seal packaging and a proprietary algorithm that routes the most efficient path for deliveries set the company apart from its many competitors in the space."
"[We] are not considering exploring brick-and-mortar at this time," Landsman said in an email interview with Mashable. "We saw this as a unique opportunity to bring everything that Jet fresh grocery has to offer to life in one place at one time — and that was too good of a prospect to pass up."
"The store will combine some of the e-commerce company's tech prowess with Story's chic decor and eclectic product assortment. The location will also host events featuring big names like celebrity chef Mario Batali and make-up mogul Bobbi Brown."
According to the story, "Jet president Liza Landsman said the company has no plans to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint beyond the temporary storefront ... Landsman says Jet sees the store as a way to showcase what the site has to offer in terms of fresh produce and other foods. She says the company's custom-designed fresh-seal packaging and a proprietary algorithm that routes the most efficient path for deliveries set the company apart from its many competitors in the space."
"[We] are not considering exploring brick-and-mortar at this time," Landsman said in an email interview with Mashable. "We saw this as a unique opportunity to bring everything that Jet fresh grocery has to offer to life in one place at one time — and that was too good of a prospect to pass up."
- KC's View:
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I'm not sure this makes a whole lot of sense as anything but a one-off, since the whole ideas behind Walmart buying Jet was that it gave them both online and bricks-and-mortar functionality ... opening a fleet of Jet stores doesn't make a ton of sense.
Except ... as I think about it, I wonder if using the Jet banner on a physical store would actually allow Walmart to get a little more experimental with new formats. After all, putting the Walmart name on something brings both expectations and implications. Maybe not so much with the Jet name.
In other words, this almost certainly is a one-off effort. Until it is not.
