No one was surprised when Walmart snatched up burgeoning online retailer Jet.com for a cool $3.3 billion in early August. The year-old ecommerce site headquartered in Hoboken, N.J., had been making waves as a viable competitor to behemoth Amazon since its inception with investors like Goldman Sachs, Alibaba, Google Ventures and Bain Capital lining up to fund early venture rounds. But courting investors without impressive digs can be hard, so it helped that the company’s north New Jersey outpost was designed with style and packages—literally—in mind. “The whole floor is laid out like a shipping box that was cut open to lay flat,” explained Jet’s talent experience senior director Kristin Reilly. “Upon entering the office, the box is sliced open to lay flat—opening you up to the light—and view. All spaces along this shape contain more industrial materials—such as reclaimed wood, solid and perforated metals, concrete, corrugated cardboard, and cork, etc.—suggesting warehouses, packing material and the like.” Reilly declined to comment on whether Walmart will infuse some Bentonville, Ark., flair into the space.
