Ephemeral Messaging + ecommerce
7I'd post this over on the mediocre.com forums but it's busier here. So let's say it's been pitched to me that ecommerce opportunity exists in the "Ephemeral Messaging" space... platforms like Snapchat / CyberDust that are mostly peer-to-peer self destructing message services. Given the success of the core service these are starting to serve as platforms for celebrities blasting messages ala Instagram / Twitter.
At first glance, disappearing messages makes one think of a heightened sense of urgency. However, these services hold your message indefinitely and only destroy it after it has been seen... So on further review it's more like it's urgent once you decide to view it which isn't the same as having a short overall real-time life. In other words, responses to an ephemeral message could occur over the same range of time that any other messaging platform allows.
Best I can come up with is it's like Mission Impossible. I mean for one thing it's feeling impossible to come up with something clever. But also I mean that something clever would need to fit a sort of "this message will self destruct in 10 seconds" type of gamification.
I thought posting this as a question might push me to have further clarity -- I doubt many of you are actually on these platforms. But anyways, what's your take? Think there's any "ephemeral ecommerce" fun to be had?
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Like if you push out a deal and you can view it once and must make up your mind at that time of viewing it to buy it? Or once you view it the clock starts and you have like 75 seconds to click buy or it's gone? Doesn't give much time to price compare, look up reviews, etc. ... so that sounds like a good business plan!
@oppodude main technical issue there is it'd be hard to stop the link from being shared or stored and then clicked again for more time. It'd need to be tied into the messaging platform with a special URL per user/attempt I guess. Agree it's weirdly anti-consumer / pro-business in a way that somehow doesn't seem evil. heh.
@snapster Seems like you just gave @shawn the start of a second ulcer. But it does sound interesting. Very interesting. and exciting.
@oppodude Except that even us old geezers have more than one e-mail/Twitter/phone/whatever way to get messages. It would be easy to set up more than one account so that message on Acct#1 would give the user time to research the product. If they wanted to buy, they could then open the mail/message on Acct#2 and buy before time ran out.
@rockblossom assumes everybody gets the same offer
@TerriblyHuang @rockblossom true - maybe specific offer/url tied to account settings. I dunno. It's an experiment to say the least.
@TerriblyHuang True. But if people are getting different offers, what criteria does the seller use to decide who gets what?
@rockblossom It could be essentially random, like fukubukuro. For a site like Amazon, they could do something like their current emails, except with special pricing if you act now. Or something like mass customized lightning deals.
@TerriblyHuang Not the same thing. With the fuku, everyone is getting the same offer at the same price - but no one knows what will be in it. If there's an ephemeral discount for a specific product and different accounts get different offers, what's the criteria? If the offers are truly random, that would be equitable, but perhaps not great business. The seller would miss sales because the offer went to the wrong people. There could be a checklist so that accounts could say they want offers for electronics and kitchen appliances, but not diapers or pet food. But in that case - duplicate accounts could be set to get the same offers.
@TerriblyHuang Amazon appears to be doing something like that with the rollout of the Echo, selecting customers virtually at random for invitations to buy. From what I can see, that's not going well. There are customers who have been waiting 6 or more weeks for an invitation to buy who really want the thing, while a gaggle of early purchasers are trying to resell theirs (at a hefty markup) on eBay. People still waiting are giving up; don't still want it because it was intended as a Christmas present, or have now researched similar products like Ubi and are buying it instead. Purely from an external view (as I have no inside info) the marketing looks like a spectacular failure.
@rockblossom A waiting list seems like the antithesis of a flash deal.
@TerriblyHuang Just so. But then, Amazon is not using a wait list. They send an "invite" to buy an Echo, which is good for a limited time (days rather than minutes) and includes a special discount price for Prime members. But rather than sending out invitations is some logical fashion, they seem to be sending them randomly even to people who had never heard of the Echo and never expressed any interest in such a device. It's one of the oddest marketing schemes I've ever seen.
So like an infomercial pitching "call in the next 10 minutes, and we'll upgrade you to __" aspect, except it's something worthwhile and a deal instead of more crap that the buyer has to pay "separate postage and handling" on?
Or like a not-yet-existing meh-rathon (or woot-off), one product after another, and the customer has a set period of time to impulsively purchase the said product presented at the moment or else the opportunity is gone for that customer?
@narfcake ah - interesting to consider the sequential sale aspect as an angle here. So like maybe you'd have to progress through a sequence to see the later items as the "mission"
@snapster There's cake! It's really what kept folks glued to old Woot-offs, expecting that there's a BOC at some point in the day. When that stopped happening, look what happened to the Woot-offs ...
@narfcake Twitter kind of ruined it. The wootoff feed is about 10-30 seconds faster than the website. Oh crap. I let out the big secret.
@oppodude Meh. When an $8 for a BOC doesn't even yield $8 in crap, it doesn't matter anymore. And never mind the crate offerings ...
@narfcake @snapster This sort of like the current dailysteal/rush a little bit, sort of… which isn't worth it because it takes too long and odds suck. You'd have to do this so the odds are in favor of a payoff and not that most people would miss the boat.
@narfcake The crate sucked. Big time. I liked my lunchbox. it's at work. and don't get me started about the pro football mystery bag.
@lisaviolet this isn't exactly the best source of info but I was reading over this article as I searched for other examples and maybe it covers the topic more broadly/better? http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/81185.html
@snapster Reading that it seems like most of the applications are not sales. And in that context there is nothing stopping someone from taking a snapshot/printing the email before it goes up in smoke which defeats the disappearing aspect.
I think it could be a nice add-on. Maybe send out the self-destructing messages at 12:00am for the same product on sale, but with a small discount (5% or whatever). It would drive more impulse sales plus give people more of an incentive to stay up late to see what's coming.
To expound on that last part, very few products have sold out before 7:00am ET. There's not much incentive to stay up since the product will almost always be there in the morning (unless you're chasing a Fuku, of course). If I knew I was receiving another discount on an already discounted item, I would be more tempted to stay up to see what the item was (and perhaps purchase it).
Oh, and make this for VMPs only ;)
@jsh139 I jumped to this thought as well.. main problem is it doesn't really do anything ephemeral that Twitter couldn't do. I guess maybe it allows us to deny existence of said discount? That's sort of fun I suppose... random/strategic discount levels maybe.
@snapster Perceived superiority goes a long way. If I knew I was getting a leg up on a large percent of the masses it might drive me to pull the trigger faster ;)
@jsh139 @snapster I like feeling better than others too but I hate having to watch twitter/F5 like a hawk to get something. Ephemeral - but on my schedule I say!
@oppodude agreed
@snapster What if you gave random members different levels (maybe 5-15%) of temporary discount for certain products, with a few people each night getting very large no-brainer (50%+) discounts as incentive for participants to be active? Then, missing your discount when you could have had a large one would be like missing a BOC or Fuku. @joelmw (and future goats) Are you ready for all the complaints you will get from people as they miss their giant discounts?
@jsh139 Anything we can do to exclude @unixrab from the really good savings.
@cengland0 my money is just as good as yours - I just don't give it away for the added temptation to buy something else.
@a No I am not.
@unixrab You didn't have to give any money away. It was offered to us for 2 months for free. You still refused to take the offer for principle or stubbornness.
@cengland0
-VMP is a gateway drug and makes stupid purchases easier to justify by enabling "sunk costs" fallacy to run rampant! When I see more than one product that I really want offered more frequently - I'll VMP.... I've said this all along.
@unixrab Gateway drug? Oh, that's reeeeeeeal good ...
@narfcake :-)
@unixrab I thought you were hopeless before, but now I have no doubt.
@unixrab Gateway drugs only hurt the weak. You're smart to stay away from them.
Yeah, I'm just not seeing the practical business money making side. But for building brand identity and gaining a true following, I could see Snapchat ephemeral messages coming from Irk, Glenn or the Cowboy. If, ad the article notes, Snapchat is the quick way to catch up with friends without having the burden of scrolling past their Facebook posts, have the messages be timely drops from your anthropomorphic brand ambassadors. If the message isn't read in time and the deal ended, well that is a reminder to check more often.
@Pamtha but "check more often" is partly a characteristic of the customer and meh needs to take care that they don't alienate or "burnout" part of the target market with having to live on social media/the internet/your smartphone (if you have one) - unless of course that is the target market they are chasing (that would not be my first guess however for their target market…)
Perhaps as a bonus add on to your order? Could it be triggered by signing in or even that meh button? It could open up some savings on shipping as a secondary or secret sale. Maybe it would be drifting away from the one deal concept though.
I think something like this would be interesting. Here's my thoughts on what might be good. Each deal/link/whatever should be a one-time link that disappears as soon as you aren't viewing it anymore (close the app/page or background it).
Maybe the time limit should be relaxed enough to allow you to check any time during the day, as long as you actually check during that day.
Have to think about this more and I am in the middle of editing a revise and resubmit that I have to get done by tonight as my co-author is working on it in the morning. Off the top of my head I am not sure there are a lot of gains and I can think of some problems. Not sure if gains>blowback
If the disappearing message had a link you needed to click to get, for example, a discount, there are two issues I can think of off the top of my head:
(a) if you are sold out quickly why bother with a disappearing message as what is being rewarded is checking your email in the middle of the night (which gives the Korean's and those on the west coast a distinct advantage)- might as well send out a regular email message that doesn't vanish since odds are high if you don't see it within the first few minutes it was sent out the product would be sold out to begin with. If you are afraid of forwarding then make it that the code can only be used once and it is linked to the user (no idea of the complication of that programming)
(b) if the goal is to increase impulse purchases - eg discount goes away if you don't click within 2 minutes or something (remember some of us have download speeds of 4-18 (umm yeah sucks) and upload speeds of .38-1.8 - yeah tested at these way too many times) do give those folks enough time to deal with obnoxiously slow internet, then this might work.
Of course we all know that prices for everyone else will go up somewhat to cover discounts - as they have to cover 2 mo of VMP - note the comment in the speaker dock thread where people commented on the increased price. You will have to weigh the blowback from that with increased impulse purchases.
At the moment I can't think of any other useful use of the vanishing email feature other than the discount use that others have mentioned.
Of course offering a product for sale that is only for sale via the email and if you buy within 2 minutes of receiving the email because the link will go away (again the sell out issue, try not to reward being up at 2am for those on the east coast - a lot of people do need to sleep at night to get to work and working people do have more money to spend, generally, than those of us who are unemployed - unless they are well heeled retired folks) that might be a use. But again having enough inventory so that it doesn't only reward the people who live on their phone 24/7 (as some of us don't have smart phones and have to use a computer) who are up in the middle of the night would be useful.
I think you need to think about the possible unintended consequences/blowback of doing this - especially if you stick with the middle of the night model, particularly if coupled with with extremely limited inventory and really only useful for people with smartphones who sleep with them so to speak.
Someone else's idea of logging in (remember a number of us don't ever log out unless the site dumps us out when you monkey with it) triggers a disappearing message (pop ups are a problem due to pop up blockers - some of which do not notify us a popup has been blocked so we'd have no idea meh's popup would be blocked) with a disappearing link to click on to get the deal might work. Link needs to be active long enough that those of us with slow internet can actually complete the deal and don't lose it due to slow speeds. Again inventory needs to be enough and doing this at a variety of times so you don't (a) always reward the Koreans and West coast customers and (b) don't always punish those at work who have internet blocked and phones that can't be used while working. OR having enough inventory and enough hours that the message can be activated to cover these kinds of issues.
Of course if you are going to do this to dump small numbers of inventory so you don't lose money fuku'ing it that is yet another issue. Then I think you need to be careful to be fair with rotating access to stuff like this because people will get upset if they are always shut out due to the time of day (or night) you offer this.
Those who live on Twitter will just spread the word to check your email, log in to the site, whatever which sort of defeats some of this (and rewards those with twitter accounts who live on twitter, even in the middle of the night)...
I think the "urgency of a deal" factor (ie, only being allowed to view the page once, for a limited amount of time) is...
a) Meh to the extreme. A snapchat vanishes after 10 seconds, a Meh deal vanishes after 24 hours. It won't be here tomorrow. If you want it, order it now. It will be gone.
b) Anti product research. If you told me I had 6 minutes and only one chance to buy something, there's very little research or spec-shopping I could do. It would be a pure impulse buy, nothing more. Kinda like when Livingsocial does "gem" deals or whatever the hell they call it. I get told I have 6 minutes to buy this deal for 10% off it's already 52% off price. That doesn't give me any time to research Yelp reviews of the place or think about if I would even go there - it gives me the urgency to buy it now and research it later once the non-refundable deal is done.
I could see an ephemeral messaging service like snapchat being used to give out rewards -- like a free something but you have to act in the next 5 minutes. (And it wouldn't even have to be a tangible item.)
Or, lets say it's 12 hours into a sale and something isn't selling as fast as you'd hoped, you could give an additional 10% discount in the next five minutes (from the time the message is opened).
But I don't see the benefit of using it in a situation where there is actually a limited supply.
If there is a limited supply then the clock is set the same for everyone. Once it runs out it runs out for everyone at the same time. If that's the case, then wouldn't it be better just to send out texts?
Plus, I'm assuming that you want to make it an enjoyable experience for the sake of brand loyalty etc. So wouldn't it be better to make everyone happy by giving everyone an equal shot at the prize? You still have the sense of urgency, but without the disappointment of finding out that it's already sold out before you had a chance to open the message.
one idea I've had is to have batches of sales. meh would show one deal at a time, but would randomly select from a batch of already made sales. Every time you reload the page a different sale would appear from a predetermined batch.
One of the things that I like about daily deals is finding out what the deal is. Normally you've got to wait a whole day to find out what the deal is. But the batch idea would let people scratch that itch.
Maybe this idea is better suited for a woot off style event.
I could expand on the idea more of you guys like it.
Is this a solution in search of a problem (metaphorically speaking) or is the goal here to find ways to increase impulse purchases while eliminating the chance to see that whatever is being sold is such a piece of junk that giving it a second thought means you don't buy? Of course you may have another goal in mind here but these are the two practical ones I can think of on the spur of the moment. Perhaps you'd like to tell us your goal (if you have one?)? Might be helpful in terms of targeting suggestions towards that goal...
If it is the former then the brainstorming you asked folks to help you with here makes sense
If it is the later (eg increasing impulse buys) then I think looking at your target market matters (and I'd hazard a no brainer guess that you know a lot about your actual and target markets - which raises another question - is your actual current market actually the target market you hope to exploit and are you trying to figure out how to reach both markets? - if Yes what are the conflicting needs/wants of the two markets that you are going to have to dance around not to piss off one or the other?) with how you do or do not use this. If your target market is generally those with lower income who go to bed late, does then buying this piece of junk mean they won't have the money to buy another piece of junk (eg zero sum game)? If they are higher income and can afford to make impulse purchases at the check out counter, so to speak, then it this more a "I am buying for fun type of thing?". If so maybe they won't mind getting a pile of stuff they otherwise wouldn't have bought had they time to think about it. If they are the true bargain hunters (not almost hoarder or actual hoarder bargain hunters - rather those that look for true bargains of stuff they can actually use) then that group may not bite often because research of the item they are buying, is there a better deal elsewhere, etc. matters to their purchase… fill in the blank for other potential customer niches.
One bit of potential blowback I can think of here is if you are going for the quickly vanishing, impulse purchase deal here, and they buy too many things that they don't have time to research and find out that stuff is a waste of money/isn't suitable/is actually liquidated for a good reason because it is crap... will there be a rush to judgement that what this site sells is useless for their purposes and so they no longer even check out the daily deals?
Another aside - the best products I think for stuff like this (eg the vanishing deal) are not things you need to research is this compatible with the version of android, iphone, laptop, whatever that I already own unless your product information has a very complete and accurate list that can be read quickly (eg the time limit to buy issue).
After reading all the responses and ideas above (none below) (many good ones) ... I still feel like the concept isn't really defined (said another way, square pegs and round holes).
That being said, if your (@snapster) goal is to increase profit - I think this would be a convoluted way to do it, if it works at all. AND I HAVE TO SAY: I bow and acknowledge that your business savvy and track record speak for themselves and my opinion is just mine, and offered for free. Bottomline: It just kinda feels like it'd be a lot of work cycles and a lot of dev for not-much-bang-for-the-buck
...that being said; If you're (@snapster) just bored and want to have some yuks and in the process perhaps flesh out the most insane profit making idea since google... I think there's a big sandbox to play in with regard to monetizing ephemeral messaging. I have no idea how. ;-)
@unixrab He might make more money ditching items he has too few of for another daily deal than to fuku them out though… Could be used for that. Of course the unintended consequence of that would be crappier fukus. In the christmas crap thread people posting there are in the middle of discussing how they they are fed up with BOC's on woot for assorted reasons (including low value and only dollar store crap) and don't even bother anymore… Looks like the entire woot halo got tarnished (my conclusion reading through a number of threads here) from just a few woot actions that pissed people off, disappointed them too far… We are playing, after all, with real money we had to earn, not monopoly money… The threshold of when playing with real money on a site translates into putting a match to that money so I won't check the site as often probably varies by individual… but eventually that threshold will be reached for a number of people.
@unixrab "if your goal is to increase profit" I think the goal is to attract more gullible consumers.
@Kidsandliz I too have abandoned both the wootoffs and the BOC's. During a wootoff, I just occasionally check at random intervals if I'm bored.... definitely not the way I was back in the @snapster days... using a woot alarm and auto refresh at 3am... :-)
Yes as @Kidsandliz said at some point up there "a solution in need of a problem" is my perspective. I want to do something in the space but I don't know what problem to solve or (more likely) unique novelty to have fun with. I'm looking for a match to ephemeral messaging precisely, not simply messaging in general.
Some of the comments are discovering as I did that ephemeral messaging can create distributed individual urgency but it is not actually any different at creating realtime urgency for a group than normal messaging.
For instance, when I typed mission impossible I started thinking of handheld smartphones as personal quiz/puzzle devices that present something you might have to solve to get a deal before the opportunity "self-destructed." Perhaps a messaged question disappearing could make ability to cheat harder? I need to run that thought out more but I share it to highlight that the "held until you read it, then disappearing" message aspect is what I'm looking to have fun with.
@snapster In that case, I think the item on offer should have (nearly) unlimited supply. This way people who open the message after work, et cetera, can take part. If not, what advantage does the ephemeral message have over SMS or tweets?
There is an implied assumption the ephemeral messages are persistent until opened. If they can expire unread and disappear, that would change the game.
@TerriblyHuang yes, that assumption is based on the existing platforms -- they deliver messages to your inbox that have a set TTL of 30 seconds or so but will stay unread indefinitely. To be clear, I want to play with these platforms, not create a new one.
@TerriblyHuang I like your first comment - where I was headed was actually limiting demand by creating friction (quiz/riddle) which in effect extends the supply like you note. An ideal world would be like the Groupon style service discounts that are essentially unlimited... but I'm not ready to go there just to test this (and many hate those regardless)
@snapster This message sent me thinking code word or clue to a puzzle. A word or phrase could be used as a prize, discount or maybe advance notice on a sale. (Yes I am on the east coast with a gotta get up early job) Then again, you are still stuck coding to the member to avoid the secret leaking and being copied. The info still leaks as far as forum posts and other messaging to go check for your code.
@snapster Held until you read it, took a screen shot of it and posted it on twitter…. just sayin'… there needs to be a way around that somehow, how I don't know as the programming, etc. is not my forte.
wait... ..I think we should all stop giving @snapster great ideas on how to take more of our money!
@unixrab LOL so exercise more control over opening your "wallet"… just as when you know (marketing) that by touching something you are more likely to buy it, so you can then counter that impulse with that knowledge, so too will you be able to resist the gravitational pull of @snapster if you know what he is up to…. OR you could just give up technology and then you'd be "safe" :->
@Kidsandliz
@snapster Do you get a return receipt when someone opens their message?
@snapster @narfcake (doing this down here as it is a PITA to type a long message in a rely pane) - you mean like the game shows where you can keep what you won (or in this case bought) or trade it for what is behind door number 1, 2 or 3? I can see how you'd modify this to take advantage of the disappearing message AND you could randomize the order of the offers and under which "offer" is the "big one" thus snapshots of the messages wouldn't help…
So the game would work something like this (I do get my royalty if you use this, right? Or at least a fuku without having to be up at midnight that contains a honda fit since my car is a 1990 - or pay my health insurance premiums… snarky grin)
5) If you don't buy (or did and want to try a new trade) you are offered a new link in the next message you can click on - You click, you buy, if you don't you will get a new message… etc.
5) Rinse and repeat for how ever many number of times you want people to have a chance to buy.
Or better yet you could offer several links in each message…and they picked one to click on. (you will have a nice messy decision tree programming mess here - so there may be some practical considerations in putting how this works together).
For this to work you will need a bunch of things of roughly comparable value, a few things of greater value, a couple of high value "big winners" and a couple of odd, quirky booby prizes that you can't trade up from ('you loose sucker…" but they would need to be clever booby prizes such that others would think they were cool in some sort of twisted way). Most people would NOT have a series of choices that involved the "big winners" or the "booby prizes".
Randomized the order that people would see the things they could buy except that the booby prizes and big winners would not show up in the first round for the ones who would be "offered" them.
To prevent snapshots from clueing people in (eg the snapshot problem) what is behind door number 1 (and the url you are using) so to speak you'd need a big huge bunch of urls with a pile of random numbers of uneven length in the address to make it harder for some little nerd head with too much time on their hands to write a url generator to test and test to find the ones you are using. OR put the urls behind a sign in firewall that locks you out if you click on more than the prescribed number of links. Again I am not a technology nerd.
The game could be open for, say 12 hours THAT WAS NOT ALL OR MOSTLY THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT FOR THE USA. To be fair it would need to be set so that some of the hours were either before or after "normal business hours" in USA time zones so those who can't do internet while at work can access it. Or open 24 hours instead of the daily deal and to activate the vanishing messages you click on the buy button on the meh home page and that triggers paying for it and then triggers the messages arriving.
Your individual game started when you opened the first message. Umm that would mean some care needs to be taken how you distribute the big prizes and booby prizes- eg they need to be randomly placed though out the 12 hours so there is no advantage when you play or if word gets out that all 3 (so don't tell how many) big prizes are gone many would not play anymore. IF some of the big prizes never were clicked on then perhaps all the booby prize winners could be in a random drawing for it, or all the non big prize winners or the booby prize winners have a random drawing at the end for a special prize for them whether or not all the big winners are picked. you would need to be careful not to increase the odds of getting the "big one" late in the game - the odds need to stay the same through out. Then have something else to "award" all the big prizes if you want at the end.
Cost of "entry to the game" is one fee that also includes shipping… so then the decision will have to be is this a break even game or a marketing game to drive business to the site so you will have big prize cost losses…
Hmm variation on the game - they can choose the "next level" pay some additional money and then try for a more expensive big win prize. OR Have several financial levels of the game and adjust the item costs accordingly and at the beginning you decide which level you are going to enter at rather than have a chance to "buy up" or buy two click in a message to increase the odds of a big win or whatever… many variations some of which may be programming nightmares.
Hope this is clear - if not say so and I will try to clarify… If you like this, give me some time and I can refine it a bit. I am pretty good at dreaming up complicated (or simple zinger) class experiential activities that students love and this is sort of along that kind of line. The thing I don't know that much about are the technology limitations that will affect how the game needs to be designed both for how it is played and to prevent cheating/sharing of what is behind a particular url.
Give me some more time and I can probably come up with a half a dozen variations on this theme, some of which may or may not be easier to understand with a flow chart - that is if you think this has any hint of promise to develop further...
clarification on step 2 - you don't see a picture of what you are buying, rather a link to click on. All you know is that it's value is not less than the cost of entry on the first round. Round 2 on all bets are off on the value thing. Clicking on the link is a "can't back out of it when you see what it is and unclick" buy decision
Buy now, or you'll never get another shot at this speaker dock again? Yeah, right.
There is only one point to twisting these awkward frameworks into a business model; Free Media Exposure.
The first to do something, not matter how stupid, will get mentioned in a lot of media.
I am a loss as to what that business model would be. This is akin to the "door-to-door sales problem", which is totally unrelated to the far more mathematically interesting "traveling salesmen problem". In my entire life, I have only made one purchase from adults doing door-to-door sales. Enough of my neighbors bought too, so that the people doing the work were actually making well above minimum wage, while the product price was reasonable. I don't imagine that will ever happen again.
Door to door sales are another ephemeral marketing experience. If it isn't a scam, the people doing the sales are in a hurry. Conversely, if the people aren't in a hurry, it is definitely a scam.
I had recently moved into an apartment complex where half of the apartments had fireplaces. Most of the residents were graduate students, so they were new to the area. A couple came through with a pickup truck full of firewood. They delivered the wood directly to our patios, we didn't have to get our car trunks dirty, or even our hands. The price was way better than the convenience store bundles of wood. To get a better price I would have had to have bought a face cord and split it with multiple neighbors. This was easy. They were selling firewood and convenience.
More importantly for the business model, they were selling something that wasn't even on my shopping radar. If it had been on my radar, I would have lined my trunk with cardboard or plastic, and bought some when I first moved in.
I have not bought something from an adult door to door sales person since, and don't expect to.
But I digress... If there are any, there are darn few products that would make sense for a snapchat speed sales model.
@hamjudo We take kids to MacD's etc for the playgrounds at times. Figuring out how to use that platform to "play" while shopping might be amusing to some. If you are selling an experience to go along with the product, then the "experience/entertainment" (if well enough designed and priced right) might attract a subset of people… So I think it isn't the products as much as the experience is enticing (although there are some limits on the kinds of products that would work). heck we'e been sold a bill of sale that the community of a store for Pete's sake, is an experience worth our time on the off chance we might buy something… realistically disappearing email games isn't any stranger, just less familiar… Actually it isn't all that different than going to the county fair and wasting a bunch of money on the games trying to win a stupid stuffed animal or whatever piece of junk they are "giving" away.
In the past you've expressed some concern about extending Meh past the deal-a-day model, but there are ways to use these platforms to make Meh even cooler. Early sellout? Maybe around 4 a.m. you total up all the rejected credit cards and other canceled orders (I assume a count can be compiled via code) and send out a blast at 5 a.m. with a link to grab one. (One per buyer at that point to spread the love around.) You could do beta tests on new features, like the way the image handling improvements were rolled out to VMPs as a controlled beta. Or maybe try product watchlists -- maybe someone needs some weird thing like a waffle maker, so at midnight Eastern on the night the waffle maker goes on sale, those people get self-destructing links that let them buy it right from the message. (Fukubukuros would be banned from product watchlists since that approaches bot-level activity.) Or these messages could be the equivalent of the throbber on Woot; send 'em out with a link when supply dips to 10% of original inventory. That plays into the immediacy of the self-destructing message, too. And VMPs could get Do Not Disturb hours -- some people just aren't going to buy at 4 a.m. regardless, so let VMPs opt out between hours they can designate.
@editorkid For the most part Meh does not sell things that are worth getting up in the middle of the night to buy (eg 4am or some nights even staying up late enough to see what the new product is if I am tired). I guess those in Korea could use it (that is the trouble with a night shift selling model in my opinion - but then nobody asked me nor died and made me king LOL).
@Kidsandliz Right -- but the point isn't to get people up at that hour. The point is to have it waiting for them when they look, since the message doesn't self-destruct until it's opened. I almost put that into my post, but then figured I didn't need it. D'oh. (Also, East Coast residents are starting to get up at that hour, and they're the ones most likely to be frozen out by a quick sellout.)
@editorkid I understood what you meant that is wouldn't vanish until after they opened it. IF the item is a sell out danger though they are going to have to get at it in the middle of the night because it will be gone by morning anyway… this will just speed that up
@Kidsandliz I'm not sure whether you're conflating two things here or not, but you're focusing too much on time. The sellout warning is different from the buy-the-canceled-orders thing, and it's triggered whenever the product inventory reaches that threshold, middle of the night or middle of the afternoon. The buy-the-canceled-orders messages similarly can be sent anytime, but, if (after a quick sellout) it's sent around the time I suggested, everyone sees it when they first check their messages on that platform that day. I used that time as an example, but the hour just doesn't matter beyond using it to treat everyone in a manner as level as possible. As for whether speeding up sellouts is a bad thing, the Meh team can speak to that. But I disagree that it will "just" speed things up; the point is to build loyalty by using these platforms to engage people with special and slightly preferential behavior, and these ideas do that. The question isn't whether they work for you, me, or @joelmw (because who cares what a goat thinks), but that it works for some people. (Much like when JonT picked a bunch of people to receive fukubukuros out of the blue. Remember how the count of sales actually went down that night, as they weeded out credit fails and duplicate orders, and sent them to random people? The first idea builds on that. Those folks were really surprised and really happy.)
@editorkid I see what you are saying… I had slightly misunderstood your previous post. There were duplicate orders on the fuku due to server issues that night. I don't think that is a chronic problem so in that respect the weed out duplicate orders isn't going to be much of an issue most of the time anyway.
@Kidsandliz I dunno. I keep using examples and they keep turning into one person's targets even though they're hypothetical examples. There are always cancellations, failed transactions, and duplications on sold-out products. To the extent that inventory can be counted algorithmically, Meh can build loyalty by creating ways to get these to buyers who want them but missed them. I'm looking at a bigger picture to engage those people. A lot of the ideas here push more products at us. That waters down the deal-a-day brand and turns Meh into all the other sites that have multiple and parallel sales. Who needs that?
I think it would work better as an invite to a private sale event. You get the message, once you view it, you have say, a minute to get into the event. If you leave the message or the event, you lost your spot and someone else gets an invite.
Some of the ideas mentioned here are intriguing, one or two could be actually helpful, but most just kinda stress me out (and, no, not from the blame perspective). I hate extra pressure (and the possibility of something going wrong and an opportunity irretrievably lost) that's implied with the time-sensitive uses.
Honestly, the best uses I can think of for ephemeral messaging are with my wife: exchanging socially-unacceptable snark (about others or that might offend others) or personal pornography. I love you meh, but not like that; I don't wanna see you naked.
TMI, right? You know what I always say: better too much than not enough.
@joelmw Despite putting ideas out there I tend to agree with you. Those who live on the internet might have a different take because crap is coming at them 24/7 but I have a life outside of phones and internet. That life, generally, is more important and takes priority. So I miss a sale. Oh well. Except right before christmas when I needed cheap stuff to give family and couldn't afford regular prices so was here more, most of what is sold on here isn't even a want, let alone a need. Sure there are a few things that could be impulse purchases if I ignored my finances (not doing that though) but all in all free VMP isn't going to make me buy more. Messages that go up in smoke in the middle of the night or the middle of the day isn't gong to change my buying behavior (probably more accurately lack of buying behavior). And my participation in this particular thread is because I am (a) procrastinating editing a paper and filling out a job application that requires me to, line by line, repeat my vita which is a big waste of time, a duplication of effort and really annoying and (b) it is an interesting intellectual challenge - finding a problem to fit the solution.
@snapster The answer is right under your nose, it must smell like office wall to you. Luckily I'm a developer, I live in Mesquite, and I don't slap too hard.
Seriously though, how do I get in touch? Email me. I've got your solution. It considers profit (not just cool), should be implementable in short order, and it is no way involved with @unixrab.
@festercluck tweet, linkedin or email me matt / mediocre.com
@festercluck aye! no invoking of my name for sales pitches without express written consent !! (©unixrab LTD. 1999-2015 all rights reserved) (@snapster)
I think maybe thinking too much is bad. Shouldn't it be as simple as you get a SnapChat from Meh. You have 30 seconds to click on the deal. If you click on it, you have a cart timer of about 15 minutes (similar to ticket sites that make you finish your purchase or your seats will be released). If you don't buy, so sorry, that awesome deal is gone forever. If you do buy, good for you sucker.
@snapster…had a thought on this the snapchat thing. Not sure what you are up to with spite.com - I am presuming something along the lines of glitter bombing only more twisted… but you could use snapchat to send an appropriately snarky, slightly dark humor, scary suspense music in the background type of message to the recipient (composed by the sender, stock with your writers, or custom from your writers). The only problem I see would be keeping it out of spam… hum and the sender could be things like "ihateyou@" or "fuckoff@" - probably not in the spite.com domain, rather something like @pandora.pox.com (yes that is pox not box, or cleverer - hmm maybe totally the opposite like @surpriseforyou.com… anyway...that can't easily be traced back to spite.com so they can't easily figure out what is going on). Send it the day before delivery to warn them that their world is about ready to get a bit grimmer…
I'd guess it would be likely people who order this would want next day delivery in order to strike while they are still peeved (thus potentially an impulse purchase for some), which would also make it easy to tell when it should arrive. Or if they choose slow boat to build suspense then a few of these messages while they wait for when unknown "surprise" item will show up...
Speaking as a serious shopper ... I don't use Snapchat or other similar service and would avoid any deals or method of shopping that would require me learning how to use that type of service. Personally I would prefer to have the deals available in a format similar to Amazon's Lightning Deals. They run for a limited time with a small amount time available for research prior to the deal. The limited time format is longer than ten minutes but short enough to help move smaller quantities of product and then expire. Multiple small sales could run consecutively throughout the special sale day. I view it like Blowout Sales for "Limited Quantities, Act Now!" situations. It gets rid of those lingering 20 or 30 items left in the warehouse that aren't big enough for a once a day Daily Deal. Just my personal preference rather than responding to a random email that I'll probably never remember to read.
@donnameh You don't have to learn how to use it. The message shows up in your mailbox and self-destructs after 15 seconds or something (only it actually is still retrievable by geeks). You you'd open it like a usual message. The sender needs a snapchat account. If meh used it they'd be the sender.
@Kidsandliz Thank you for explaining that. You can tell I've never used snapchat. If I understand correctly you are saying that I don't need to sign up for snapchat, only the sender needs to sign up for it. Also, I have to admit that often I am so busy that I don't check my email for over 24 hours, so if this new way of selling would probably never be useful to me in initiating more spur of the moment decisions to buy something, by the time I've seen it the deal is probably stale. I tend to go directly to the sites I'm actively buying/selling/browsing on and logging in there and seeing what's new, what I want to buy, what I've sold, what I want to research and take it from there... it works for me and I only check email when I have at least an hour free downtime. Doubt I am a good fit for any new random or ephemeral sales plans.
1) The older I get the more reluctant I am to use / view / participate in anything that demands my attention now . . . experience has taught me that urgency generally equals stupidity and urgent decisions equal regret.
2) The older I get the more I realize that nothing is truly ephemeral. It may be transient or fleeting in one context only to reappear in another - and I'm making this statement in the abstract - not specifically related to eCommerce.
3) Again, experience has taught me that the more transient something tries to be, the more likely it is to be retained and then imitated or bettered.
Just my 2 cents added to the buck fifty in this thread.
@Pavlov Edit: 3) strike "tries"; replace with "is professed"
@Pavlov The thing is there are a ton of people out there who respond to these marketing ploys… you and I apparently are not one of them, thus not part of that target market.
@Kidsandliz @snapster Confucius say, "Ephemeral messaging has limited shelf life".
Buy the meh product, and (sometimes) be given this ephemeral deal for a companion product.
Example:
Don't do it for every deal. Some should be just gags/fun. Some should be killer deals. My idea here is to encourage people to pull the trigger on deals they were otherwise on the fence about.
@JerseyFrank I like this, but it does come close to violating the one item a day thing. Still, I'd probably give it a chance.
I'm a conscientious objector to social media in all its forms. I honestly think that except for a few usage cases, it is the worst thing to happen to modern discourse and society, ever.
Oh, but I use it to stay in touch with far away friends!
No, you don't. You use it to pretend to care about them because you read their pointless blurb, and posted something back. CALL! VISIT! IM! ANYTHING!
These FB and Twitter broadsides are just pathetic self-aggrandizement and justification.