Gadgetory

is jet really better than Amazon let's put it to the test I'm Bridget Carey this is your CNET update many retailers dream of crushing Amazon but there's a brand new shopping website that's actually taking on the challenge jet comm launched Tuesday it says it can not only beat Amazon's prices but it's scanning the web to offer the lowest prices from any site jet is a shopping Club you have to pay $50 a year to use the site and that's where it makes all its money Jets hole pitch is that the more you shop the more you save on some items the idea is that if the items are coming from the same warehouse it's cheaper to ship it together with your other items so it'll shave some money off your total you can also knock off a few cents of the total by waiving your right to return the item now to see if it was really cheaper than Amazon I took it for a spin all right let's see how this whole discount thing works let's do a little shopping well go in here I need some household items let's pick up some Clorox all right I'm saving 59 cents keep going let's get some swiffers adding that to cart oh okay getting some interesting savings alerts just keep it going um you know what I need some Dixie Cups for the bathroom let's see okay I'll grab one of these add to cart oh I feel like I'm at a casino here it just keeps a roll in the numbers I don't know what this even means all right so far I'm saving four dollars and 53 cents keep it going you know what I need some socks oh no sucks available at all okay so I continued on my journey and picked up a shower curtain my total price came to about 31 dollars which was cheaper than picking out the exact same items from Amazon so yes jet was cheaper but there are a few other things you have to keep in mind jets membership only gives you free delivery when you spend 35 dollars or more and delivery for many household items is one or two days but some things could take five days I remember how it didn't sell any socks the site has an answer for that called jet anywhere if you use jet as a portal to another web site like Macy's and then go shopping on there you can earn points to spend later on gedcom but to get the points you have to forward an order confirmation email back to Jett it's a huge hassle but it's part of the startups awkward growing phase and it's gonna be a long awkward phase in fact it's losing money with some orders because it doesn't actually carry many items yet so its employees are buying them on your behalf from other stores like wal-mart and JCPenney and then shipping it to you that's the plan until it can secure more retail partners the founder and CEO mark lower said in interviews that it won't be profitable until it gets about fifteen million members which may happen in five years but you might as well check it out now to see how it works it's free to try for the first three months that's it for this tech news update there's more at cnet.com from our studios in New York I'm Richard Carey