
Paribus (YC S15) saves you money when items you purchased online drop in price - ericglyman
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/just-saved-146-amazon-purchase-without-lifting-finger-191223254.html
======
MichaelBurge
If a kid screams in the restaurant and they have a policy of giving him a free
lollipop to calm him down, that doesn't mean we need an app to keep track of
the restaurants you've visited without claiming your free lollipop and then
hire a company to go around with an automated screaming device to coax dozens
of lollipops out of the local businesses.

This seems like the kind of company that would spoil this particular form of
customer service. It just seems like greed more than any real value.

Now, those old scummy companies that used to offer rebates while employing
actuaries to calculate percentage chance that you won't cash the rebate,
intentionally make the process difficult, and then profit? Go ahead and run
those guys into the ground. If someone could upload a scan of the rebate and
have you guys do the rest, I wouldn't mind that.

~~~
ericglyman
It's a good point.

But I'd challenge you on your assumption that this is a bad thing for stores
and consumers.

It's a powerfully negative experience to buy something, and then find out
within a few days (or hours) that it's selling for far less. It happens
millions of times per day (www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2014/11/20/amazons-
pricing-strategy-makes-life-miserable-for-the-competition/), and most people
don't find out. But the reality is that it's happening.

A customer could return it for free (and re-buy it -- many states require this
by-law). Or a store could do good by the customer and give a price adjustment.

It turns out that when stores do good by customers when this happens, shoppers
become far more loyal (and spend FAR more on average too, growing store top-
line & often net bottom line). This is part of the secret of Amazon Prime.

While I can't claim that it is the right or only view, I fully believe that
stores will benefit far more than the costs.

*Revised based on mquander's feedback

~~~
MichaelBurge
I love a good story, but I think you're embellishing this one a bit much. It
sounds a little like "We're rescuing victimized consumers from abusive
companies employing teams of uptight actuaries intent on nickel-and-diming you
wherever they can".

They might very well be conniving, but your app to me feels more like those
people that save up a bunch of coupons and walk out with a cart full of
groceries and the grocery store actually owing them money. There's nothing
wrong with that: I have no doubt that the CEO of Fred Meyer still rues that
day in college that I walked into one of his aisles and walked out with a
bunch of cartons of eggs.

People aren't victims when a company offers a product at a price that the
customer is willing to accept. I'm sure you have a fine app that will save
some people some money, but we're not rebels striking an uprising against our
grocery store overlords who dare to sell overpriced eggs to underprivileged
American consumers.

(edit): The parent post has been edited to sound less like a movie trailer, so
my post may now sound out-of-place.

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roymurdock
One data point: I signed up for the service ~ 6 months ago. I do ~ $200 in
Amazon purchases a month.

I got my first rebate last night: 50 cents back on some RAM that had dropped
in price the day after I purchased it. For anyone who is concerned about email
permissions, here's the email (automatically sent from my personal account) to
Amazon:

Subject: I was charged more than current price

 _Hey,

I am writing you to ask for a price adjustment review on a recently placed
purchase. Please reference:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/xxxx](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/xxxx)
and xxx.

I ordered a Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3L-1600 SODIMM Memory for Mac
(CT2K8G3S160BM ) for $66.99 on January 10.

However this afternoon I noticed that the price is $0.50 less than the amount
I was charged, as it decreased to $66.49. As I bought the item recently, and
the price has been significantly discounted, would it be possible for you to
please start processing a post-order price adjustment refund?

Many thanks for your outstanding customer service.

Best, Roy Murdock_

The service also attaches a screenshot of the shipping confirmation to the
email automatically, which is pretty cool.

I suspect that I would get more value from the service if I purchased a higher
volume of commodity/low price goods on Amazon, especially computing parts that
are essentially guaranteed to go down in price within the near future.
Overall, it's great to have this sort of protection from dropped prices and is
definitely worth the email access permissions in my opinion - but at the first
sign of a data breach or privacy issue, I will drop the service immediately. I
am not affiliated with Paribus in any way.

~~~
prawn
Is there a way you can set it to ignore meagre price drops?

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mmanfrin
I was using this for a couple months and it saved me a bit of money, but in
the end I couldn't get over the idea of a third party having total access to
my email account -- which is total access to every account I own (banks,
social media, everything). It just weirds me out. I canceled the service and
changed my email password.

~~~
what_ever
May be create a separate email id just for Amazon?

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cemregr
I couldn't sign up using an email address that has a + in it. (My amazon email
is abcd+amazon@gmail.com). Could you get paribus not to flag it as invalid?

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OopsCriticality
It would seem that other than being a little more automated (giving anyone
access to my email however is a deal breaker in my book), this Paribus service
wouldn't seem to have any real advantages over (what appears to be) a
competing service from Citibank:
[https://www.citipricerewind.com](https://www.citipricerewind.com)

A compare/contrast on the Paribus website would be helpful.

I see statements that Paribus doesn't sell customer data, but on the Paribus
blog, I see analytics run against what appears to be customer data. That
dichotomy concerns me.

Are there any limits on how often a customer can request a rebate? What
happens if the customer hits that limit? Will a company "fire" a customer, as
can happen to people who return items too frequently?

I'm also surprised to see that Citibank has a patent in this area…

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gervase
One major caveat that I just recently discovered - purchases made through
Amazon are only covered if they're actually sold by Amazon, not through a
third-party reseller and fulfilled by Amazon.

If you change your purchasing habits to choose items only sold by Amazon, you
could quickly exceed any possible savings by paying the higher direct price
than you'd pay for the same product (with the same shipping time) that you'd
get from a third-party merchant.

Just an FYI if you're thinking about signing up for the service.

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bitwarrior
This thing needs a fucking threshold mechanic. I just signed up and it sent 3
refund requests all for around 50 cents. That's just embarrassing. I
contemplated cancelling my account before I realized the damage (the emails)
had already been done. If it does this again before a threshold mechanic is
implemented, I'll be definitely closing my account.

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jonaldomo
While this is cool, isn't the concern that a retailer would get upset and
change a policy to prevent this from happening? What's the end game here?

~~~
ericglyman
Founder here. Definitely a common first reaction, but we've found that on
average shoppers become far more loyal (and spend more, growing store top-line
& often net bottom line) when this happens.

You might think we're crazy, but we fully believe (and have data to back up)
that we're helping these stores far more than the costs.

~~~
jegoodwin3
You should take it a step further and help the retailers add this as a feature
to their own apps -- having a store app should include a promise that if the
store lowers prices, it will refund the difference for purchases in the last
week (or whatever time frame) to loyal customers, perhaps through a store
credit. It's a dandy reason to drive adoption of the app.

One thing you should listen to is the number of people who want a reserve
price (transaction threshold). This price setting is pure economic gold as
information goes -- it tells you their risk aversion (probably) and the shape
of their utility curve for extra income. I'm sure it correlates with income,
and gives independent verification of income, statistically.

If you have 5 big retailers using your app feature internally, offer to build
them a network they can join, to make their rebate offer even more attractive
to participants.

With the stores' aid, you can circumvent the problems with email permissions,
which frankly are going to limit your adoption. You are far better off working
with the stores in a partnership I think, and helping them to understand their
own customers' reserve price (and hence propensity for returns and
chargebacks, which they surely care about), than being a 'gotcha' adversary.

Added link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis)

~~~
austinjp
Selling this as a service to the merchants seems like a great idea. It would
feel less creepy than allowing Yet Another App access to my inbox and credit
card details.

Supplying merchants is also likely to provide a more _predictable_ income.

However...

Are giants like Amazon really likely to listen to a pitch from a startup, even
one incubated at YC? (No snark, genuine question.)

There is another option: open source the product and give it away, charging
for the hosted service. Obviously this may not be an option for Paribus, which
would be a shame.

------
TheBiv
Seemingly really cool service.

I don't know if I want to authenticate my email address with them though.

It seems to me like Amazon/Best Buy/etc next move will be to add a provision
that "You must submit a claim not through an automated service"

~~~
toomuchtodo
> It seems to me like Amazon/Best Buy/etc next move will be to add a provision
> that "You must submit a claim not through an automated service"

So their service will auth against your Gmail account in order to place a
Draft there for you to send ;)

~~~
rabidonrails
although if you're giving the service free reign of your email, it could
easily look for those confirmation emails.

------
rangersanger
I've been on the service for a few months as well and have been refunded
~$100.

Another possibility- Amazon just coopts the idea and rolls it into a feature
of prime, ala Orbitz.

------
ars
Instead of linking to my email address, which I would never allow, let me just
forward the relevant emails to you, i.e. to a special email address linked to
me account.

It's pretty easy to add a rule in most email providers that forward only
message matching certain patterns - you could even provide documentation of
what patterns to include.

~~~
cookiemonsta
If i understand what you mean correctly, this is what tripit.com does (and
they do it very well). I just forward plane/hotel bookings and it get imported
into my account straight away.

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ddavidn
I've used Paribus, and although I'm not usually a fan of letting services
connect to my email (even the one I use for shopping), I like it. I've
received a few refunds from products that I have pre-ordered and then watched
the price drop the day after it came out. Amazon has been happy to honor all
these requests so far.

~~~
smt88
Create a completely new email account _only_ for Amazon. Connect it to
Paribus, and then forward it to your main email account. Your privacy concerns
will be limited to whatever Paribus does with your Amazon purchase history.

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Nemant
How is Paribus taking that 25% cut? Do I have to put my banking details in the
app?

~~~
ars
They charge your credit card.

------
sirtastic
I'm currently subscribed and using it. I'm an amazon prime subscriber who
makes several purchases a month and so far it's returned $1.68 back to me. As
a free service, awesome.

~~~
Splendor
It's effectively free since their obtaining refunds on your behalf that you
otherwise might not have, but it's not technically free since they take a cut
of the refunds.

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pragmatic
How does this compare to Walmart's savings catcher?
[https://savingscatcher.walmart.com/](https://savingscatcher.walmart.com/)

It appears that savings catcher is only for current prices, not prices that
drop later.

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moonka
I've been using this since April, and do a ton of shopping on Amazon. I've
saved $27 since joining, and since I wouldn't have checked those, I consider
it free savings. One negative is that it doesn't support the 2-FA for Amazon.

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stephenitis
I've used it and am awaiting the result of a $26 dollar request from Target.
(dropped prices on barstools)

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eachro
Does Paribus get anything out of this besides data? Do company's buy Paribus's
data?

~~~
ericglyman
Founder here.

We are not selling data. Our model is to charge a portion of refunds that we
actually get for you (that way we share same incentive as our users)

~~~
peteretep

        > We are not selling data
    

Yet. Do you offer an iron-clad guarantee you won't in the future? Otherwise it
seems like the first thing you'll do if investors start to put pressure on
you...

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crocowhile
Will this work with amazon uk?

