zeeDive Launches Private Beta: Screenshots
Michael Arrington
15 comments »
New San Francisco ecommerce startup zeeDive, which we mentioned a couple of weeks ago and still has the most basic of landing pages up to the public, has entered a limited private beta.
Like another recent startup called Limbo Auctions, zeeDive has an interesting twist on the standard online buying experience. zeeDive sets a top price for an item and drops it steadily until time runs out or someone buys it. Buyers can step in at any time and make a purchase, or set a price. If the item falls to that price, that buyer gets it.
It’s an interesting model that will appeal to bargain hunters. However, the current inventory on the site is very limited (even though they cover a ton of categories, including Beauty & Health, Clothing Accessories, Electronics, Jewelry, Travel, etc.). There just isn’t much that they have for sale, yet. A bigger concern is the pricing, which doesn’t seem to be so low that people will flock to the site. Nevertheless, these are issues that can be worked out during the beta process.
The design of the site and use of Ajax to show pricing changes and to set the buy price is very well done. They’ve also included merchant feedback, watch-lists and other useful features. Our overall impression is that they’ve created a buttoned-up ecommerce site, but there needs to be much more inventory and significantly lower prices. Note that the company has already warned us about the limited inventory during beta. Also, the company is proactively engaging with testers to improve the service (they sent a nice survey asking for feedback - mine is given here. :-))
I’m sorry for being a spellcheck nazi, but in the second paragraph zeeDive is spelled wrong.
Is this like Woot! or is there just 1 item to be bought?
Thanks Daniel.
A business model centered on driving down the price to as low as it can go. Hope they run a lean office.
http://www.telecommer.com
Okay I dont get this.
How can they make money? Unless it is a publicity site like Limbo.
I suspect they contact sellers of products to give a sample product to be ‘auction off’. Making the site just a marketing site instead of an ecommerce site.
I like to hear your thoughts about it.
What makes people think they’ll lose money?
All they need is traffic. If people are flocking to their site, they will create a market and achieve liquidity. Then, they will get fair market value for each item sold because people will snatch them once it gets to an average deal.
Could be like Overstock.com - i.e.: buy inventory from out of business places, overstocked stuff, old models, etc at pennies on the dollar. Flip it fast and chances are you’ll make a few dollars on the turn over.
This concept is not new, it’s called a “reverse auction”. It will be very difficult for them to get traction because the key to making online marketplaces successful is getting sellers, and sellers really hate reverse auctions because there’s a perception that it favors the buyer and drives down prices.
Jeff is right — it’s also called a “Dutch auction” because it is the method used for the giant tulip auctions in the Netherlands. Coincidentally, it was also the method Google used for its IPO.
Interesting concept.
I can see this working pretty sweet for the travel industry, maybe a partner for Boomtrek? People who are last-minute shoppers would love for a seat to open up cheaper or a vacation package to keep getting lower, until the time is right to snatch it up… Should be interesting to see how it works. The site is blank right now, I just checked.
http://www.boomtrek.com/
Find Stuff, Everywhere.
It’ll be interesting to see if they can gain enough traction with the general seller. As a third-party developer for eBay, I’m interested in seeing what can be done. As more sellers are looking to sell an item across multiple platforms, is this another way to do it?
They are just trying to steal drop.com’s thunder. drop.com was the first online clearance rack that does this very same thing and has been around for a while. I hope they have their lawyers ready. Visit drop.com. Prices drop as you shop.