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Comment by kulkarnic | Hacker News Reader

I just checked their site, and they act less like a hungry startup, and more like a don't-care near-monopoly.

Three examples:

- You can't see prices for many items without logging in. For a site that is geared towards price-conscious consumers, this is such a silly move. Alternatively, they consider login/registration as a worthwhile conversion (otherwise they could show you the price when you add something to cart.)

- Yet, their registration page doesn't let you create an account with Facebook, Google or anything else. If you care about conversions, act like you care!

- Their Help is an email address or a phone number. Seriously? No chat? No FAQ? Even Comcast has this figured out. If your LTCV is > $500, there is no reason to skimp on support when you don't have traction.

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It's possible the login gate is a necessary concession: many retail brands have policies in place that dictate a minimum advertized price. Publically offer the product at below that cost, and they will stop selling to you. They do this primarily to protect their other retail customers and to some extent, their brand image.

Crucially though, a brand will often times allow you to sell a product lower than M.A.P. as long as you deal directly to a customer in private. It's possible Jet has made deals with brands that allow them to sell under M.A.P. as long as they do it behind a sign in gate.

It's not just on the customer side. My mom, an Amazon seller, has been trying to get in to list her stuff since about two weeks after Jet went online. No response at all.

They were at Channel Advisor Catalyst, a trade show for e-commerce channels and services. We do shipping auditing and were exhibiting; they wouldn't give me much chance to chat with them. Not that they need to talk to me, but for the nature of the trade show, it felt like they were less interested in talking to vendors and potential partners (the point of that show) than press (since the show is b2b, not b2c)

We have a login gate on Open Listings [0]. I'm pretty torn on it. On the one hand we want to reduce friction for people to get to our detail pages. On the other hand, if you just browse a few listings, you might never understand our value prop and we won't be able to actually save you money on your home purchase. Capturing emails allows us to trigger a drip campaign that teaches users about our value prop. The typical buyer signs up, starts requesting property info a few days later (competitive analysis, details we're not allowed to display), then puts in offers a couple weeks after signing up.

I suppose it's a little different with real estate (really big ticket item, you just buy one) but the general principle holds -- getting an email allows you to engage with a user over a longer period of time.

[0] "House Hunt" button https://www.openlistings.com/

Requiring the user to register to see the price is purely for metrics. Number of new and active users are things investors typically like to see. I use to work for an e-commerce and we did the same thing.

This seems like a foolish requirement for an investor to impose.

The more intent a user has, the higher you'll see conversion rates, generally. And if I've already seen a great price and want to buy my intent is way higher than if I'm just curious about what their price is. Terrible time to kick a user into a funnel if not for contractually-obligated reasons (like other posters bring up).

For the first example, I think the sellers put this condition in the contract. They (sellers) do not want to publicize low prices. The second example is a valid point. Though I personally keep my social networks in their own box. In the third example, they have a phone number! I think most tech companies avoid displaying/having a phone number to contact.

Can't comment much on if they don't look hungry. The founder has already sold one company to Amazon.

Or, nobody wants to buy anything from them, and they think that giving users a bad experience might engineer a different result.

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