Ever run out of toilet paper or trashbags at an inopportune moment and think to yourself, I wish I had someone to remind me when I need to buy household basics? Tonight at 9 pm, Alice.com will show you a better way to buy household essentials online that will not only remind you when you need more toilet paper but will save you time, and most importantly, money.
The basic idea behind Alice.com, which raised $4.3 million in funding last fall, is that the site is an open platform for consumer packaged goods manufacturers, like Procter & Gamble, to sell directly to consumers instead of going through retail channels like Target or Wal-Mart. On the consumer side, Alice.com lets users create a profile of their household (how many people, kids etc.) and then the site will keep track of items and reminds users with emails when they are running low and need to reorder. Each shipment is bundled together in a single ‘Alice’ box, delivered directly to the consumer’s door, with no shipping costs attached.
Although young, the site, which has over 6,000 products, has a great deal of variety when it comes to different types of products. There are 86 choices under bathroom paper, which includes kleenex, toilet paper, cotton balls and more. And there are 804 offerings for hair products. You can choose to shop for goods by type of room (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom), brand, green/natural products, or by the best deals. You can also filter results by lifestyle choice (green, bargain hunter, premium), by brand, or by those that have coupons. Alice also crawls the web for coupon codes (often discounts offered by the manufacturers themselves) and will automatically apply discounts to products on the site.
I did a comparison of a bottle of Tide liquid laundry detergent on Alice.com and Drugstore.com. On Alice.com, the price was $7.71 with discounts, nearly $6 cheaper than the price on Drugstore.com, which was $13.99. The other nifty tool that Alice provides is a built in comparison shopping feature for each item, that will look up comparable prices on competitors including Drugstore.com, Safeway, Walgreens, CVS and Amazon Fresh.
Of course, you pay your state’s tax on the item and you have to buy at least six items at a time, which can be annoying if you run out of certain items at different rates. But Alice saves your information so when you return to the site, it will calculate what you need and suggest items for you. You will also be able to choose free samples to add to your shipments from manufacturers. You can also review products on the site but you have to have purchased an item in order to submit a review. And you can publish your list to the site, if you want others to see what you’ve bought (which might not be that interesting considering all lists will be composed of household items). And to keep up with budget conscious users, Alice.com will chart your spending history over your orders.
On the manufacturer side, Alice.com makes no retail margin allowing each manufacturer to control product assortment and pricing in its own direct sale to the end consumer. Alice collects the goods from the manufacturers in a warehouse and manages all of the e-commerce and shipping. So how does the site make money? Advertising. Alice.com collects money from manufacturers which post ads on the site and also offers alternative ways to advertise via free samples and coupons. It should be interesting to see if advertising alone is a viable business model for Alice.
Alice.com could have the recipe for success for a startup-a solid idea, competitive pricing and experience. Co-founders and serial entrepreneur can get Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire managed to sell three companies in the past +10 years, most recently flipping social shopping service Jellyfish to Microsoft (which it later used to create Live Search Cashback).
Wiegand and McGuire both said that manufacturers are excited at the idea of selling directly to the consumer via Alice.com. Wiegand cited one reason that I found interesting: the emergence of retail stores providing their own labels for household goods. For example, Target has created their own brands of dishwasher soap, which competes directly with Dawn, Palmolive and others and is often priced at lower pricepoints. Wiegand says that manufacturers find this frustrating, especially when retailers advertise their cheaper brands next to the manufacturers more expensive brand.
Competitors of course range from online retailers like Drugstore.com to Target, Walmart, Lowe’s, and even grocery stores. But with Alice’s prices and convenience, the startup has the potential to make significant strides in in the space.
WOW. Very interesting. I think Alice should get a cut from manufacturers too to sustain their business.
Wow is right. I will be surprised if they can indeed make this business thrive on advertising alone. But given the owners’ backgrounds I won’t be that surprised as I am sure they have a few tricks up their sleeves. Good luck guys!
it kind of sounds like buy.com back in web 1.0
hmm, the dbags behind jellyfish, nameprotect and bizfilings. techcrunch, have you asked them about their problems with the SEC?
http://www.sec....min/33-8291.htm
12. Wiegand facilitated the scheme as follows: (a) he agreed to accept inflated prices for their services from Homestore and to use those funds to purchase advertising either from Homestore or the Media Company; (b) he agreed to use Business Filings simply to add another entity to obscure the paper trail; (c) he allowed the use of an incorrect business address for Business Filings and backdating of certain documents to falsely portray that the two parts of the circular transaction were separate and distinct; (d) he eliminated links between the websites of Business Filings and NameProtect to make it appear that the two entities were unrelated; (e) he ensured that different officers signed the contracts of the two sides of the transaction so as to more thoroughly conceal the transaction from PwC; (f) he assisted Homestore management in improperly justifying to PwC the inflated price Homestore paid for NameProtect’s services during PwC’s examination of Homestore’s financial statements in the second quarter of 2001.
13. As a result of the conduct described above, Wiegand caused violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, which prohibit fraudulent conduct in the offer or sale, or in connection with the purchase or sale of securities, respectively.
14. Also as a result of the conduct described above, Wiegand caused Homestore’s violations of Section 13(a) and the Exchange Act and Rules 12b-20 and 13a-13, thereunder.
I’m on a budget and I buy generic brands. I guess I have to keep going to the supermarket.
A $4.3 million toilet paper reminder? Damn… is NASA getting involved?
My thoughts exactly.
Is it a matter of too much VC money or worse yet, the reality of friends investing in each others companies.
While this business has some viability given the size of the consumer product market, the real issue is: Why do you need that kind of capital to scale a relatively simple model?
If it solves a problem, why not let it grow in market?
I do like the user interface. Whoever designed it has good knowledge of user activity.
Maybe ..!!
Who knows it Sawag,This is America,I don’t know what they are about to invent after this recession,maybe it’s a sleeping time…Damn.
Alice Alice, Who the GREAT is Alice? Alice is really a mall as a whole! Prices from all the leading stores compared and the rates at Alice being far more cheaper than them will surely drive shoppers crazy for Alice!
One has to wonder if the day will come when internet sites no longer use women’s names to push menial services such as shopping. This kind of blatant sexism has been going on for too long.
Not to worried about a simple name like that Jon. You should worry about being named after a toilet.
insightful comment of the day, love it.
very funny comment.. i loved the “being named after a toilet”
Didn’t you ever watch the Brady Bunch? Relax….
Or Alice in Wonderland. I think this guy is looking for Huffpo or Moveon, rather than Techcrunch.
Guess they should have called it Pat, eh? Or Agador Spartacus?
But yes, Alice the housekeeper came right to mind.
Good call on the Agador Spartacus. Hilarious.
i cant believe techcrunch just deleted my post. but here’s more about the guys behind jellyfish, name protect, bizfiling and alice. Their little problem with the SEC (I’ll digg this if this gets removed again, Mike).
http://www.sec....min/33-8291.htm
12. Wiegand facilitated the scheme as follows: (a) he agreed to accept inflated prices for their services from Homestore and to use those funds to purchase advertising either from Homestore or the Media Company; (b) he agreed to use Business Filings simply to add another entity to obscure the paper trail; (c) he allowed the use of an incorrect business address for Business Filings and backdating of certain documents to falsely portray that the two parts of the circular transaction were separate and distinct; (d) he eliminated links between the websites of Business Filings and NameProtect to make it appear that the two entities were unrelated; (e) he ensured that different officers signed the contracts of the two sides of the transaction so as to more thoroughly conceal the transaction from PwC; (f) he assisted Homestore management in improperly justifying to PwC the inflated price Homestore paid for NameProtect’s services during PwC’s examination of Homestore’s financial statements in the second quarter of 2001.
13. As a result of the conduct described above, Wiegand caused violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, which prohibit fraudulent conduct in the offer or sale, or in connection with the purchase or sale of securities, respectively.
14. Also as a result of the conduct described above, Wiegand caused Homestore’s violations of Section 13(a) and the Exchange Act and Rules 12b-20 and 13a-13, thereunder.
Seriously, you might as well as it to the deadpool now, and save the trouble of having to update it later. Lifeminders ring any bells? People didn’t need reminders for important stuff, so why do they need reminders to buy toilet paper and household cleaning products?
However, if these guys decide to add a twitter and facebook integration, then they’ll easily get more funding, even though it is a totally stupid idea.
? I think you didn’t read past the first sentence?
dumb name
dumb idea
deadpool after they run out of money
Um, let’s get specific shall we?
http://www.amaz...ails/index.html
This is the reason they’re going to the deadpool. Not because of the name. 4.3 Million dollars is nothing compared to 4.3 billion.
I found in my years of exp, that you should never invade an exponentially larger player’s space when you are starting up.
“I found in my years of exp, that you should never invade an exponentially larger player’s space when you are starting up.”
There go Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and about a million other startup companies based on your comment. You dingbat.
Even at the time, people felt Google was doing something radically different (interface and algorithm). MS was going in to the ‘personal computing’ space, which seemed a bit of a gamble to many of the more established players.
I’m just not sure I see anything radically different, or even marginally innovative with Alice.
>I’m just not sure I see anything radically different, or even marginally innovative with Alice.
by eliminating the middle man, they can offer a more competitive price.
>I found in my years of exp, that you should never invade an exponentially larger player’s space when you are starting up.
It depends if you have a competitive advantage or not. If you’re trying to sell a new luxury watch, good luck trying to out spend the existing major players in this industry which relies on heavy spending on marketing and advertising.
But if you have a fundamentally more efficient business model (i.e. DELL selling direct compared to Compaq selling through distributors) or a patent on a new way to manufacture something at lower cost, etc. then go head-to-head for the prize my friend.
At first I thought the story was about re-vamping Go Ask Alice (from Columbia) – I remember when they launched that site it made “Cool site of the Day!” – Ahh the early days of the Interweb.
I’d say considering they sold the first two companies for over $15 million each and most recently sold Jellyfish for $50 million, I’ll give it a chance rather than comments from all knowing techcrunch readers like Alex.
Exactly! Successful people simply duplicate things they have done well and succeeded in. The first priority for these guys was finding the perfect domain name – Something they ended up paying 300k plus for. More startups should give such importance to the address they become known by.
Alice.com is pretty cool, but I still will continue to buy most of my groceries from local stores – walking down the aisles is my only regular exercise anyway.
OK, no mention of the marketing heaven this will be?
Demographics and sales patterns on commodities that, up till now, did not have the benefit of online tracking like this.
I think it’s more than advertising and Alice knows it. Check out what it says on the account page:
“Our suppliers love to give special coupons deals on your birthday. You can’t change your b-day, so make sure it is correct.”
And, the TOS:
“…Alice may share Non-personal Information with select third parties on an anonymous basis”
which includes “demographic, geographic and psychographic information.”
I think they may have just opened a marketing research firm that looks like a store.
^ This, is spot on.
I wish I could like this more!
Short domain, great design; usually equals interesting product so I had high expectations when I took a first look at it.
However, I then came back and set up an account and it turned out to be a slight disappointment. Don’t get me wrong; still looks like a great product. I just thought I would be able to get more practical use out of it.
Anyway, I think Alice is a great example of what online shopping could end up being. Very personalized and with much assistance; along with a very physical (store front) feeling.
Think about it in terms of how it could be implemented in other scenarios. For example, Amazon could create a tool for buying just their books. They could have you set up a profile about what books you like and then create a virtual book shelf. It could send you reminders when it thinks your done reading your latest book and suggest a new book.
There is no way that the reminders are going to be even close to accurate. On the other hand, and the real idea here, is giving the manufacturers a vehicle to combat the store brands. That is a very good idea.
I’ll celebrate the day they sell stuff on a website with a dude’s name.
Why Alice.com and not John.com?
Craigslist
Btw, does anybody else think its retarded to have a reminder service like this online? Shipping takes time, and if you run out of toilet paper today, Alice.com will probably take two days to ship you the items.
What’ll you in the meantime? Wipe your ass with a handkerchief?
I just checked this out with my wife – she does most of our household shopping, but I’m out enough that I drop by our local stores enough to know what the deals are. We just looked for dishwashing detergent and cat food.
1. Garbage bags showed up under the cat food products. Yeah, it’s beta, but still weird.
2. None of the prices were cheaper (for anything we’d buy) than I can get at my local Target, Walmart or Food Lion stores. I just picked up a 75oz bottle of dishwashing detergent at a local shop for $2.73 (palmolive) which is close to $1 cheaper than Alice.
This may appeal to people who don’t like to go out much, or live far from stores. It may also work for people who are brand conscious or brand loyal. For many consumer staples, however, people will swap to a new version or try out a generic to save 50 cents, and it’s much easier to do so at a store.
bad idea
Checked out the site:
Agree about being cheaper at Walmart, BUT the one thing I’ve noticed is that the prices are much better than online competitors (eg Amazon Fresh, Drugstore, Peapod, etc). I can see Alice taking a piece of the pie here.
How many people really buy this stuff over the web? I’m as web-centric as anyone, but still buy staples and such at a local store when I’m buying food. I’ve never felt compelled to want to buy toilet paper and cleaning supplies over the web. Ever. Do other really people feel the urge or need?
I do. I live in a city and do not own a car. I have to carry home everything I buy from the grocery store. If I need bulky items like toilet paper, paper towels, and dishwasher detergent, that’s about all I can carry home. So I have to make extra trips or come home with no food because I had to carry these big items. The type of service and items Alice offers should be very conventient and valuable to people like me. Not everyone has the same exact lifestyle as you.
I looked at diapers some were significantly cheaper per diaper than other websites. The other sites had bulk packages alice.com didn’t so for them to have a price $.04 cheaper per diaper was surprising. I’m not sure they can beat the local store when I stack coupons.
I was curious about how the .favicon, logo and tagline all worked together as part of their overall brand strategy. The .favicon is the duck, the logo is a door or a box or some other indecipherable rectangular image and the tagline is “everyone needs an Alice”. I assume that this means that Alice is the duck, but in talking to a company rep I’m told that the ducks haven’t been named, but that the duck imagery is about getting your ducks in a row. I’m not sure the story is coming through or that the imagery selected in the beta version fully supports the story.
Why does Alice.com need to charge state tax when Amazon.com does not?
Just curious as to the dynamics behind that.
I live in Nevada where certain household foods and goods are Sales Tax Exempt. Before making my first purchase through Alice.com I noticed Sales Tax was being assesed on all items, even the Tax Exempt items. I notified Alice.com’s Customer Service department and received this response:
“We currently charge tax on all items but are investigating a way to make the system smarter on specific food related tax laws by jurisdiction.”
Kind regards,
Alice Support Team”
Until Alice.com can calculate Sales Tax properly and not over collect, I will not be using their service.
This is but the latest in a long line of initiatives by CP manufacturers to disintermediate the retailers and claw back some of the relationship with the end consumer. My M&Ms, Ocado, theEssentials and J&J’s BabyCenter are but a few. As they look to compete with rapidly expanding, sophisticated private label offerings the CP companies will have to experiment with more such “sell direct” models.
Instead of buying the goods from manufacturers, marking up the price to make a profit, and then selling them—the traditional retail model—Alice makes no money on the sale of the good?.
What´s the business model?
I can’t ever get on to Alice.com. It never loads and it times out. What’s the deal with this website? Does anyone else have trouble getting onto this site?
thank you for your post
If this succeeds, it will be another nail in the coffin of your local retailer, particularly the independents. While I don’t care if Safeway or Whole Foods lose a few million and shut down a store in your neighborhood, the quality of life on the street and your property values will certainly be affected.
Also, relying on shipping companies to transport goods from far away is a very NON-GREEN way to live, and encourages suburban sprawl which is a poor use of land and contributes to excessive private auto use. Buy local. Perhaps Alice could capture the local merchant market, like OpenTable.com, rather than try to compete with it.
Wife: were out of TP?
Techsavvy Hubby: well Alice should be delivering it any day now. . .
Alice: need a divorce?
DEADPOOL
I was encouraged by a friend to go on the Alice.com website. After doing so and hearing about the convenience of getting products mailed directly to my home sounds very appealing. I notice that most of the comments are from men. How many of you men actually do the shopping??? How many of you have children in tow while trying to do the shopping??? My guess is very few. Whether you are a stay at home mom or a woman working outside the home and trying to raise a family many will give Alice.com a try. Convenience and price will win over many consumers.
I think Alice is trying to get rid of local jobs. Ig you order online, your local grocery stores and drugstores will close down and leave people without jobs. If this happens the people that lost there jobs won’t be able to get groceries from Alice. Will alice be there for them when they groceries?
Very interesting post. Thanks !!!
it may be true fishelk!
Michelle, it’s obvious: men don’t do such things! they don’t do much acctually!
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