One TV, Two TV, Red TV, Blue TV
June 10, 2008
By Mukesh Chatter
About three years ago, on a typical Saturday morning, I drove to the mall on a quest to buy televisions – three of them, in fact. My family and I had just moved into our new house and we decided to upgrade from our old sets to new ones.
My goal, of course, was to get the best deal possible. I figured the easiest and smartest way would be to compare prices at two stores, and pick the best one. How hard could that be? It turned out to be much more complicated than I could ever have expected.
I was prepared to sift through the hundreds of models, compare the pros and cons between the dozen or so makers, but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how much disparity there was in the pricing. Every TV I looked at had drastically different prices between stores. One particular 52-inch ranged from $2800 to $4800! The price difference at online retailers was just as bad.
Later that day, flipping through the newspaper, there were dozens of ads for dozens of banks, each offering a different Certificate of Deposit rate. Then it hit me. I wanted to find a place where I could easily get great prices, not just those advertised or found locally. I wanted sellers to compete for my business. The initial idea that would evolve into MoneyAisle was born.
Why am I telling you this story? Because I know that I’m not alone. Retailers know how to draw consumers in with advertising and marketing – they also utilize loss leaders hoping that you’ll buy something more expensive or upgrade with costly features once they have you in the store. It’s a sound strategy because most people don’t want to spend all day driving around for the best prices. We have all wasted an entire day “shopping around” for the best price on wallpaper, cars, credit card rates, you name it – and it can be a trying experience.
Shopping online turns out to be a lot like shopping at a physical store. Most sites search through established prices (and many of them work closely with the sellers) and present consumers with information. MoneyAisle takes this concept to the next level – we have sellers actually bid for your business – against each other – in real time, like a reverse version of eBay.
MoneyAisle’s patent-pending technology makes this happen for us. And I mean us. Because not only am I the CEO of MoneyAisle, but I’m also using it to help save me and my family money.
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Comments
On
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Kevin Cafferty
wrote:
"Retailers know how to draw consumers in with advertising and marketing – they also utilize loss leaders hoping that you’ll buy something more expensive or upgrade with costly features once they have you in the store."
This happened to me just this past weekend - I saw an ad in a circular for an air conditioning unit on sale, and when I arrived at the store the saleslady nearly laughed in my face, saying they didn't have any more in stock. I could have bought one of the more expensive units at that store, but I trudged over to someplace else to try and spend a little less money.
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