Re: UKNM: Price matching

[Steve Bowbrick]

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At 19:21 07/10/98 +0100, you wrote:

>a la Priceline?


No. I should have been clearer.


Three kinds of supplier:


1. New intermediaries: Priceline, Insuremarket et al. Brokers who get you

the best price from participating suppliers and make a turn on the

transaction.


2. 'Neutral' comparison engines. Excite etc. Companies who run engines

across many (not necessarily participating) sites and just supply the price

- funded by ads/whatever.


3. Primary suppliers who embrace the inevitability of easy price comparison

and offer to do it for you. So, you tell Dixons you're looking for a 28"

Sony TV and they run the comparison, bring you the prices from Comet,

Argos, Selfridges etc. and then *automatically* match the best (or perhaps

offer you a harder-to-compare mix of product and service which preserves

their margin). As I said yesterday, even if they can't or won't match the

best price, they have at least opened a dialogue - something that's

unavaliable to them if the punter uses Jango or whatever.


This third group is what I had in mind. Brave outfits who would rather you

didn't use somebody else's comparison engine...


s


>I anticipate a wave of suppliers offering to

>>do the comparison for you or at least semi-automate it by offering whinging

>>punter the opportunity to enter URL of cheaper product for instant verdict.

>>Then, even if FS doesn't make the sale or is disinclined to match mad

>>price, data capture has occurred and dialogue is open... Bingo.

>>

>>s

>>--

>>Steve Bowbrick                                    Webmedia Group


--

Steve Bowbrick                                    Webmedia Group

0171 292 5545                                       0468 257 570



http://www.webmedia.com/steve

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