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Questions to ask about marketplaces
In announcing its Costco-like membership model, Jet.com (yet to launch as of this writing) has positioned itself as the latest type of online retail marketplace. Considering that online marketplaces really go back to the days of CompuServe, Prodigy and Earthlink (extra points if you know what “dial up” means), I’ve been struck by how much marketplaces have been in the news lately. Think about Alibaba’s jaw-dropping $9.3 billion sales on Singles Day (Nov.

