When Todd Chipman, co-founder of San Jose, CA-based Spreezio, noticed more and more merchants were going out of business where he lives and works as a result of the recession and other factors, he started thinking about ways to make shopping locally more social and personal for both buyers and sellers.
Spreezio is the startup that came out of that idea, and today Chipman is announcing that he’s not alone in thinking it’s a good one.
He has just managed to sway Rich Garwood, a President of Verizon Wireless, into leaving the company he spent 20 years working for and joining the fledgling company as COO. Enough for us take a closer look at what they’re building, even though the service is still in alpha and only expects to hit public beta sometime next month.
Spreezio basically wants to make it easier for shoppers to make deals with local merchants.
Here’s how it works: you sign up as a shopper, and browse Spreezio’s product database – over 35 million items strong according to the company – to find what you’re looking for, using the category icons or search bar. Once you’ve found a corresponding item, you can indicate how much you’d be willing to pay for it or what percentage of discount you’d expect in order to get you to go out and buy it from the merchants who can supply it. After some fine-tuning, you can send out your deal proposal to the merchant(s) Spreezio will locate on a map, and once they get back to you accepting or rejecting your proposal, you can decide if you want to make a short trip and purchase the item(s) either way.
All in all, it’s a solid idea: shoppers tell merchants what their buying terms are simply by clicking a couple of buttons on a web service, while local sellers get qualified leads and still be in a position to negotiate. Spreezio touts their service as a cure or anti-dote for the economic recession, which is evidently a bit over the top, but if it manages to get the necessary traction (which is going to be their main challenge) it could well be a big help for a lot of local merchants struggling to stay in business.
And you can could a good deal on that flat-screen TV you’ve been wanting to buy, too.
Demo video:
Oh, and you also want to see this:
Looks like something http://justbought.it is doing… along the same lines to some extent.
Interesting, but more of an exercise in crowd-sourcing deals than actually engaging in a conversation with merchants. By the way, if you’re looking for similar services you might wanna take a look at http://milo.com/ too (I’m sure there are more and commenters will be pointing to some).
Milo looks promising… thanks for that link.
Have been using Milo for a while now, very useful
I’ve been following Milo for awhile. One of the few interesting/useful shopping sites out there… surprised you haven’t covered them.
The brand ‘Spreezio’ could be a little more awkward. Not much more awkward.
Agreed – they need a better name. I can’t imagine remembering that name or spelling it right.
A similar concept (same, I would say) that seems to be gathering momentum in India: http://www.govasool.com/
nothing new,but hey @ least they are trying
“but if it manages to get the necessary traction (which is going to be their main challenge)”. I couldn’t have put it better myself. But good luck to them.
did anybody notice in the demo video that they choose Pizza Hut as the local business to make a deal with. does everybody understand what local means in the “think global, shop local” context.
I can already do this through eBay.
throw it in the dead pool now, small merchants don’t compete on price, they compete on service + they are too busy running their stores to go to some website to bid hoping to win the “opportunity” to sell an item at the lowest price.
If they need to liquidate some crappy product, they’ll just throw it up on eBay
ummm this is not a savior of small business – its the walmart for online shopping. Why is there no manufacturing or industry left in Nth America? Because of big box – and now spreezio who help to drive down the value of service and product. “Solid idea” Sad. If you write an article should you not also discuss the “social” implications of such service. Or is techcrunch the TMZ of technology these days.
I am not sure this will help local merchants compete against online companies that have no overhead or Walmart, Best buy, Staples and a ton of other well known online merchants that could crush the local guy when it comes to pricing. The small business could never sell as cheap as those companies listed above and still make a profit. (Especially during a recession)
If I am going online to make a purchase or find the lowest price, I most likely am willing to wait for it Via UPS or Fedex.
IMO, I think it would be best, just to drive to a merchant in my town and barter with them, instead of paying a fee or the merchant paying a middle man fee to Spreezio.
After watching their demos, I think people are missing the point. It appears that they enable merchants to compete on services and not necessarily on price which is a sustainable practice and would be a big differentiator to small stores.
It also looks like they can take dinner reservations while getting a great deal on a meal which could displace OpenTable. I will definitely use this app!
I’m sure you would
If I want to buy based on price, I will just buy from an e-Tailer
I think the point is to offer more than just the lowest price? Sounds like an attempt to build loyalty via service. I can see doing that and getting what I want both faster and with some value-added. Sometimes waiting for shipping can be a drag… if I knew I was getting a web-caliber deal locally, I’d probably bite.
The problem small businesses have is they are usually locked into rental rates with landlords who take the long term view that a bit of wastage from their tenants is worth it for the benefits of maintaining high rents in the longer run…
Something like this that causes margin squeeze – well maybe it’ll help, but I am not sure.
It’s going to be cheaper for me to buy from the same wholesalers and sell out of my garage than it is for the mom and pop local store to do the same while maintaining the overheads of store and people. So I don’t see that this helps out small mom and pop local stores in the long run.
I own a graphics design business and this model makes sense for merchants because we know our bottom line and can negotiate on our prices or services. We do this all the time! Many merchants spend money (not me) doing sales promos or coupons to generate shopper interest without much transactional success.
If Spreezio can help me get found and deliver me qualified leads from consumers who are interested in my vinyl banners free of charge, GREAT! That means I don’t have depend on “word of mouth” or to spend money on the Yellow Pages to get more customers, making me more profitable.