Steal This Idea: Matching Buyers and Sellers

Today, most marketplaces are extremely competitive, and markets for some goods are near perfect. But, these marketplaces still rely on competition, pitting parties against each other. What if we could use the abundance of information we have on consumers and producers to come up with a new way to sell?

I’m in the market for a chamber vacuum sealer. These suckers are expensive, ranging from $600 to $4k for a unit that’s usable in a home kitchen. So, in addition to ebay and other web stores, of course I check out Amazon to see their price. But, Amazon adjusts its prices every single day. Two days after I first checked, the price dropped $200. Weird, right? Are they watching me? Trying to entice me to buy?

Well, why not? If someone’s got inventory they need to move, why not target great offers at those who are clearly interested (tracked by repeat page visits, or wishlists, for instance). Instead of indiscriminately lowering the price across the board, this could be a way to reward loyal shoppers, and possibly generate more revenue than if you simply sliced $200 off the price and hope someone snaps up your remaining inventory. Who wouldn’t love to receive an email that says something like “Hey A.J., we need to move these last 4 units, so we’re willing to knock $150 off the price just for you.”? That could generate some serious, Zappos-level goodwill.

It seems like there’s going to be a tremendous opportunity to match buyers and sellers this way in the next few years.

Seems like everybody wins with this one. Please, somebody, make this happen.