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A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

jessepollak.me

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Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#21

Post by citricsquid »

wtvanhest wrote: post #13
citricsquid wrote: post #6

This is a terrible idea[see edit]. What incentive is there for any store to use this system when they're providing their data in a single easy to query location? Brick and mortar stores have custom because of brand loyalty, a large part of brand loyalty is saying "I shopped around twice and both times x was cheaper, I'll assume x is always cheaper and use them". Now imagine if every time a consumer wanted something t…

Boom, brand loyalty is gone, nobody would go to their "favourite" store any more because there would be no favourites. You are assuming a store like walmart doesn't differentiate itself from other stores by having an easier return policy, or that target doesn't differentiate itself with a nicer store. If you could get 1 store to adopt this system, others may follow since they would be losing out to store 1. Would it…

I might need to clarify my point, I don't mean companies like Target or Walmart that have huge numbers of outlets, these companies already compete on $0.01 differences, these companies (in England at least) already do the sort of thing the post describes.

I'm talking about the "normal" stores, the ones that might have 1 or 2 locations in one city, or have 2 or 3 locations across the country, the stores that rely on brand loyalty and don't compete with their competitors on $0.01 difference.

No small business would ever choose to compete on $0.01 price differences; the idea the OP is proposing would cause exactly this.

Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#24

Post by kenstyles »

One thing to think about is, as a brick and mortar store, you might not want to move all your products from your inventory storage of 15 years, over to a new inventory system. Free or not, it's a PITA. It's especially painful if you're the store with the higher product pricing.

Another thing to consider is, many people shop by convenience, not by price. I always pay for convenience. Not worth it to drive 5 miles out of my way to save $1.

Not to say the idea couldn't work, and most startups are 3-4 years in the making before most people even hear about them.

Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#26

Post by damian2000 »

You could argue that EBay has something like this already, including the ability to search within your location. Its just that the majority of their products are second hand, but there is commercial sellers of new products on there too.

The main impediment to ideas like this are getting the critical mass of users to make it worthwhile for both the buyers and the sellers.

Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#28

Post by larrys »

"Here’s the idea: create a beautiful, easy to use, inventory application for brick and mortar stores: then give it to them for free."

Never would reach critical mass. Stores have legacy systems in place that are integrated and do many things. Keeping on top of inventory requires input and discipline to keep it up to date. So a store with an existing inventory program is not going to switch the best you can hope for is to get a data feed from them. And to be helpful to the end user you'd have to get enough stores to make the app do something worthwhile. (Lest you think some store is going to ditch their legacy system for a startup's free software where the company could fold..)

Bottom line is you can't even begin to think about an idea like this without doing some research into how things are being done now which from the post hasn't been done. The OP had a manic moment where anything seemed possibly. Then they came down to earth (sugar high wore off?)

The OP seems to realize they need to keep learning, and most importantly, if I might add, to get some real world experience:

"What I’ve come to realize, however, is that I still have so much to learn and so many things to do before I really feel comfortable"

Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#29

Post by w1ntermute »

citricsquid wrote: post #6

This is a terrible idea[see edit]. What incentive is there for any store to use this system when they're providing their data in a single easy to query location? Brick and mortar stores have custom because of brand loyalty, a large part of brand loyalty is saying "I shopped around twice and both times x was cheaper, I'll assume x is always cheaper and use them". Now imagine if every time a consumer wanted something t…

Exactly. I had this idea ages ago - ever since smartphones became ubiquitous, all the technological pieces have existed - it's just a matter of getting some competent engineers to put them all together.

You could have all kinds of cool extensions, such as ordering ahead of time on your phone and having pick-up drive-thrus at big box stores and supermarkets, where payment could be taken care of automagically, via NFC. You could sort not just by price, but by price + time/distance from current location (the latter for gas costs) + tax, sort of like Hipmunk's "agony" sorting feature for airfare. You could make a shopping list and the app would optimize which stores to buy which items at, and in which order you should visit the stores, based on things like individual item costs, geographical locations of stores, opening/closing times, delaying of purchasing of frozen foods, etc.

But retail outlets will never cooperate. They'll be the big losers here, as the last barriers to comparison shopping disappear and customer loyalty is replaced by the cold, hard facts.

Re: A $1 billion idea...that I know I'm not ready for

#30

Post by rmason »

I worked for a guy who had the exact same idea ten years ago! Never figured out how to execute on it though.

What I have seen people do recently is focus on a single vertical such as say used cars or hardware stores. You could start regionally and if you can make it work in say three cities you might be able to raise the kind of money it would take to go national.

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