Idea Is Queen!

Fred Wilson, the author of AVC, wrote this: “…The technology largely exists for this to happen. Society is moving this way. Superdistribution is the future. All we need is the technology to make it happen. It’s way more than an affiliate program. That’s the first step, but not the last step. Whenever you buy something, you should get a web account that makes you a reseller of that item. At a discount to the retail price. And you should get a decent margin for demand creation. It shouldn’t require any effort on your part.”

My friend and have pondered a similar concept a long time ago. Originally it’s a service that helps individual resell their 3c gadgets (especially phones), since the life cycle of high-tech gadgets is relatively short, and the market price declines more than 50% every 2 years. It’s wise to sell (off) your 3c gadgets within 2 years to others wanting them but don’t have enough budget.

On this blog I slightly revise the idea. It’s no longer an independent personal inventory manage system (the likes of ZEBO) or a platform for bidding. This conceptual system is going to be embedded in service of online retailers. For instance, after you buy a cellphone from an e-tailer, the service then creates an inventory page for you. (A page listing “what I have bought”.) You can simply forget this bonus service or you can use this system to resell your cellphone at anytime:

• 1. On default mode, your inventories are unavailable for sale, unless you activate it (and set the price/ price range). In normal mode, it just shows others that you have something at hand, and you might sell them in the future, so that viewers can book your procession in advance.
• 2. After the for-sale option activated, this item enters the auction mode.
• 3. The system automatically creates an inventory page for the new buyer of this second-handed cellphone. And thus an inventory page for the third-handed, fourth-handed ones, and so on.

What’s the difference between this idea and online auctions? I think it’s the easiness for users to manage their own processions. The whole service and functionalities are provided by a centralized e-tailer, that means the e-tailer takes care all of your processions, as long as you bought those from their onlin stores. On eBay, you have to choose a category first, fill in the title of an item, craft the description section, and upload photos. Besides, you have to carefully choose terms of shipment and payment. Every time you want to sell something, you must go through all those processes again. On the contrary, the system I mentioned does all these steps for you. The system has existing info/ resources/ marketing channels for resell purpose. Don’t forget its a online retailer. And individual reseller can harness the logistics belonging to the e-tailer to deal with cost-effective shipment and receiving payment. Only when the potential buyers want more detailed photos of your used items, do you have to show them by yourself. Otherwise, just buy it, use it, forget it, and wait surprise notifications from potential buyers’ request.

Share This