My e-commerce idea...
7I want there to be a site where I go and tell it, "Hey, I want a Sansa speaker dock for $10. Here is my $10. I choose a 3 month time limit."
If that site can get me what I want for what I want to pay in my time frame, my card is charged, and they send me the product.
It doesn't even have to be something I want. Maybe they have 10,000 stuffed bunnies they are thinking about buying, but have no idea if they will sell. There's gotta be a way to pre-sell those bunnies for what people are actually willing to pay before they buy them.
Kinda like, "look, we don't know how much we can negotiate these bunnies down to, but if 30,000 of you commit to buying them at this price, we can get a way better deal than if we just bought 10,000."
Now that I think about it, it's like a Kickstarter campaign for products that already exist.
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eBay
Maybe like eBay with honest product descriptions and actual customer service.
Wow, that would be mediocre.
Massdrop kind of does that...
I've actually seen a site like this (your second option), but it wasn't quite live.
I frequent a couple entrepreneur/startup subreddits where I saw this idea. They had the framework up, but it wasn't live.
It was kind of like Kickstarter in the fact that they had a goal that they had to reach before everyone's cards would be charged. Unlike Kickstarter, it was a product already in production, mainly in Europe that needed a large order to make it worth it to ship to the US.
If I find the link later I'll add it here.
@luvche21 Silicon foundries can't make just one integrated circuit, at least not in a cost effective way. Certain parts are only available a whole wafer at a time. If you see something in the Digikey catalog that is minimum order 37,500, and the delivery time is listed as "contact us", that is what is going on. I've seen group buys for exotic parts (exotic devices are made on smaller wafers, so the minimum order size is more practical. ("exotic" in this case means something like MEMS or silicon carbide, nothing like an exotic dancer)). It is quite a pain, and is usually done as a last resort.
That would be a lot of libility to be responsible for. The company would have to hold onto unearned revenue.
But, say you get those Sansa docks for 2 bucks, and you'd normally sell them for 5 -- but now you've got people who would pay 10 for it.
@Kevin The card is only charged if they allocate the goods.
@er1c then you'd have problems with expired cards and people forgetting they ordered it.
@Kevin Hence the time limit. Customer selects how long they are willing to wait.
@phatmass well you would remember and be cool with it. But I think you'd trigger abhorrent customers who like to flip their shit over silly things.
After thinking about this, it's a dumb idea. A better solution would be a price alert website that notifies you when your desired price is available online somewhere.
@phatmass http://camelcamelcamel.com/ was more useful when they tracked Newegg and other sites. Now it seems to be mostly Amazon price tracking. I think the other sites took steps to block them. But maybe some smaller retailers would be more cooperative.
maybe @lichme should do a Super Stalker.
@walarney I've actually thought about it, but laziness.
Gustin seems to do this with clothing, though the prices are a bit high to experiment as a first time buyer (I have no idea if it is a good business/site). https://www.weargustin.com/howitworks