NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Just three months after launching, e-commerce startup Jet is already shifting its business model as it attempts to grab just a bit of Amazon's (AMZN) - Get Report market share.

Originally, Jet launched as a sort of Costco (COST) - Get Report -meets-Amazon, where consumers would pay an annual membership fee to access unique discounts. Now, Jet's getting rid of that membership fee, which means that it will be forced to make money like every other e-commerce venture.

Jet will still offer low prices through its "Smart Cart" technology that reduces prices when consumers buy multiple products in a bundle.This saves consumers about 4 to 5%, according to Jet CEO Marc Lore. But now that Lore's getting rid of the membership fee, Jet's second level of discounts of around 7% off individual products will be eliminated. (These would have been funded by revenue from the membership fee.)

According to Lore, the first level of discounts was enough for consumers, so Jet decided to pivot its strategy to focus solely on the Smart Cart. He also said it would help rebrand the site as more than just a discount site, which was off-putting for some brands, especially premium ones.

The shift comes just weeks before the free trial for Jet was set to end, so the company may have been starting to worry that there wouldn't be enough interest in the site once consumers had to pay upfront. Lore told Re/code that this wasn't the reasoning behind the shift, though, pointing instead to the success of its free trial thus far.

Nonetheless, it does seem odd that Jet is removing one of its main original revenue streams.

"The subscription was the primary way it was driving revenue," said Needham analyst Kerry Rice. While Rice was not sure why Jet would change that model, he said it "could be the company has not ramped up users as fast as they thought."

With membership fees out of the equation, Jet's cash burn is probably going to speed up, so it may have to raise additional funds. Jet said that its investors were "very supportive" of the shift.

When Lore first announced his plans for Jet, the company was met with tons of fanfare, media coverage, and $220 million of funding before even launching. Having sold his last startup, Diapers.com, to Amazon for about $550 million, Lore started off with a solid reputation, which led many to pay attention to Jet as a serious competitor to Amazon.

Since then, Jet has had a few stumbling blocks with retailers looking to distance themselves from the e-commerce site and consumers getting confused by the site's pricing methods. Perhaps a rebranding will serve the company well.

Back in July, as Jet was getting ready for its public launch, Lore told TheStreet, "We're just going out to the market with a very specific message about spending $50 a year to save hundreds, with a dynamic pricing engine that allows consumers to save if they shop smarter."

Looks like that "very specific message" is already evolving.