

Lot18 raises $30M series C led by Accel, 3rd round this year - elliottcarlson
http://allthingsd.com/20111104/exclusive-lot18-closes-third-round-in-a-year-this-time-for-30-million/

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parfe
_How is sales tax calculated? The sales tax quoted at checkout is based on the
shipping address you provide. The amount includes both state and local taxes,
when applicable._

Looks like Lot18 solved a problem amazon claims it cannot.

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jcampbell1
_Looks like Lot18 solved a problem amazon claims it cannot._

1) Amazon has never claimed this. Amazon wants to be taxed the same as other
e-commerce competitors.

2) It is far easier to calculate sales taxes in the 500 or so jurisdictions if
you only sell one type of product.

~~~
parfe
_A message seeking comment was left Thursday on a media telephone line at
Seattle-based Amazon.com. Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said last month the
company believed "the sales tax issue needs to be solved at the federal
level."_

And that was just today. Amazon does not want to pay local taxes at all.
[http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INTERNET_SALES_IND...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INTERNET_SALES_INDIANA)

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elliottcarlson
On a related note, we are hiring: <http://www.lot18.com/careers>

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AznHisoka
I would be very interested in knowing the open rate for these type of emails
as well as the unsubscribe rate. I mean, are there really people interested in
buying wine each and every single day? Seems like something you buy for a
special occasion or once in awhile... If you buy once, you probably won't buy
for a long time.. and if you get a lot of emails and don't buy, chances are
you'll lose interest and unsubscribe

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JonLim
I'm a member, but unfortunately I am in Canada.

However, if their deals were opened up to us, I would definitely buy a bottle
every so often. They have awesome deals and wine isn't just for special
occasions!

The numbers from the site said 600,000 members who have purchased 500,000
bottles of wine. That's not bad, but I would assume it's a smaller chunk of
the 600,000 members who buy multiple bottles of wine.

Just a hunch.

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taylorbuley
Tricia spends a couple grafs on the shipping costs. I'd be interested to see a
pricing curve for mail related operating expenses for lot18. Reminds me a bit
of Reed Hastings' Quora reply on how much NFLX spends on shipping ($500m to
$600m [http://www.quora.com/Netflix/How-much-does-Netflix-spend-
on-...](http://www.quora.com/Netflix/How-much-does-Netflix-spend-on-postage-
each-year))

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xpose2000
Nice job Philip & company. lot18 has grown so much, its crazy.

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wavephorm
Flagged. Why is a wine store on the front page of "Hacker News" ?

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osdifjsdofi
Its a VC funded startup which uses technology as its primary business model
and has several interesting problems to solve?

Seems like normal "Hacker News" fare...

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wavephorm
You mean they use amazing high technology like a website, like 99% of
businesses in the world now do?

You have to be kidding me. Not every company that has a website is a
technology comapny. This is a wine company. They sell wine. They did not
invent any technology or hack abnything. This isn't Techcrunch. We know the
difference between Venture Capitalism and technology.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Actually our technology stack is quite impressive and we are solving problems
that are not quite apparent when simply viewing it as an ecommerce site. Your
arguments would go against Gilt Groupe, BuyWithMe (when they were around) and
Groupon.

There is always more than meets the eye - I would hope that someone working in
the technology sector would realize that.

~~~
wavephorm
That's nice. But that's not what the article was about. It was about how a
wine company got an investment from an venture caplitalist. It's nice you got
funding and are doing well, but please don't parade around like you're solving
humanity's problems by selling alcohol from a website.

