

Ask HN: A new way of online buying and selling. Viable? - sksa

coffeemoment.weebly.com
======
edent
I've read this through twice, and I'm still confused. Can you explain this
idea in a single sentence? Or describe how the customer journey works?

It sort of reads like "A customer comes to my website and asks me what's the
best price I can do on a pair of Beats Headphones." Is that right?

Why would a customer enter a bartering phase with you, rather than just seeing
that Amazon sells them for £x?

~~~
sksa
I don't really have a complete idea of how the customer journey works for the
time being. But basically the customer would come to the website and tell me
what he wants to buy. I'll then create him a lower priced offer that's only
for him. There wouldn't be a bartering phase. Instead, he gets a fixed price
from me, one that's lower than what he has found earlier from Amazon.

~~~
duckingtest
>But basically the customer would come to the website and tell me what he
wants to buy. I'll then create him a lower priced offer that's only for him.

So... a worse version of a price comparison website? Instead of showing the
best price, you want to show only a price better than customer's previous? Why
wouldn't people just use a normal price comparison website which shows the
cheapest offer?

~~~
sksa
I think there's a misunderstanding here. The price will not be found
elsewhere. It will be a price that's created by me based on several factors -
one being the lowest price available in the market.

~~~
duckingtest
>It will be a price that's created by me based on several factors - one being
the lowest price available in the market.

If a supplier has the best price in the market, it makes sense for him to
advertise this fact. So either a supplier is losing potential money by listing
minimum price only with you, which is extremely unlikely, or your lowest price
will be equal or higher than the lowest on price comparison websites, thus
making your website useless. The same people who may use your site are already
using price comparison websites.

I can see your idea working if you could somehow display your offer to people
who aren't shopping for lowest price while they're buying somewhere else, but
how? I think some adware did exactly that...

An another existing variation of that idea is decreasing the price when
customer changes his mind at the last moment.

------
lis
Are you proposing a reverse market, such as Zaarly initially did? If so,
Fishbacks quora post about their pivot may explain to you why it's unlikely to
work: [http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Zaarly-pivot](http://www.quora.com/Why-
did-Zaarly-pivot)

------
NicoJuicy
I think it's a bad idea, if i'm not mistaking... You are going to contact
suppliers / authors of Amazon and say: hey, i have a buyer for your book for
9$ instead of the 9,99 on Amazon.

The author will just delete your email, why would he spend one minute on
confirming the deal for a lousy 9 dollar, he doesn't care and he already has
his lowest price on Amazon. If he agrees with you, then Amazon will also want
a lower price (and then it will cost him a lot of money)

~~~
lazyjones
> _why would he spend one minute on confirming the deal for a lousy 9 dollar,
> he doesn 't care and he already has his lowest price on Amazon._

Despite the strong competition, no merchant/supplier will publicly advertise
his lowest possible price because that would be incredibly short-sighted. They
advertise the lowest price they can offer OR the highest price sufficient to
undercut the competition, whichever of these is higher. So it's effectively 1
cent below the second cheapest offer for merchants who can go (sometimes much)
lower.

Therefore, it's reasonable to expect them to accept lower priced offers made
to them directly in some cases.

In cases where there is no direct competition (i.e. authors who are the sole
providers of said product), prices are strategically chosen (not dictated by
competition) and therefore direct sales at lower prices are much more likely.

(Amazon will never know the lower price, I presume)

------
drivingmenuts
I get the impression that writeup could be condensed down to a single
paragraph. I wound up seven or so several introductory paragraphs.

That said, I think the idea of keeping prices personal and private is great
for boutique services, but generally sucks otherwise. When searching for
products and services, I'm usually looking for price first and reputation,
etc. later, since that's nearly impossible to prove in a depersonalized
internet service.

In other words, anyone can put up a website proclaiming that they are the most
awesome at whatever they do so they can justify a price point, but there's no
way to prove it objectively.

So, we're left with cost. The rest is just what you can stomach.

------
pgwhalen
So it's like a dark pool (in the capital markets sense) for retail, in which
you try to undercut the market maker's (Amazon) spread by narrowing it
yourself and not telling anyone about how narrow it is? It's an interesting
idea, but I don't think it would work because (as many commenters here have
already said) Amazon's spread is already quite narrow.

------
reelgirl
Unless one has an original product or one of a kind product there is no way to
charge less than Amazon. Well, there is one way and that is if Amazon runs out
of the product you happen to have then you will be allowed to sell yours.

Amazon monitors the trend and has the purchasing power to buy trending items
and sell at a low price. Amazon does not allow you to set your prices lower
than theirs.

------
nishithrastogi
Jet.com wants to undercut Amazon, by providing dynamic prices. They have
raised 80 million prior to launch, and in past have done diapers.com.

------
duckingtest
I have no idea what's special about your idea. All I got was that you want to
sell things cheaper than competition?...

~~~
sksa
Things would be sold cheaper than competition and that's right. However, the
unique part of the idea is to keep the price private - it is only revealed to
the buyer who has already decided he wants to buy that item. This would be the
solution for small to mid size retailers in getting sales diverted to them
from those big players. Prices are kept private for a reason - to soften the
onset of price competition.

~~~
alanctgardner3
Is the goal that the user will enter a binding contract to buy without knowing
what they'll pay?

There already is price competition. Anyone who can Google for 5 minutes can
find the lowest price, and that's probably fulfilled by Amazon or another
large retailer. The idea that you'll carry every product, offer a lower price
than Amazon, and convince people to participate in this weird pricing scheme
is pretty absurd.

------
6d0debc071
As a consumer, how does an absence of price competition lead to lower prices
for me?

------
md2be
Is this a joke?

~~~
wunderlust
Good ideas aren't always obvious, and just because an idea seems bad that
doesn't make it bad. If you have a valid refutation of this idea, why not
present it?

