Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Bunned. James Bunned.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


     

Please log in.
Before you can vote, you need to register. Please log in or create an account.

Better Shopping Comparison

Lowest Total Price made up of several Retail Sites (including shipping cost, border taxes, MIRs, etc) for the collective items in your cart
  (+2, -1)
(+2, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

While surfing and shopping online one of the pet peeves i have always had is that although i am able to find promo codes online to save on purchases and use Shopping Comparison sites i still am unable to quickly figure out the best combination to go about in purchasing several items online at the same time. And a number of them also don't include Asian online retailer sites which normally offer free shipping to North America and very low prices (i understand they are in asian characters but still i want the best prices!).

For example, let's say i wanted to buy a motherboard, video card, ram, and an LCD monitor. To buy all of them would require one to scour around for the best prices (and if lucky even find promo codes for some). Sure you could search each up on a shopping compare site but by not taking into account things like over-the-border duty costs, pre-shipping taxes, or shipping cost (which varies from site to site) then you are not truly able to find the lowest price for this combination of purchases.

When i decided to look up buying all of these items at a site (using a compare site) i found that it was ridiculously more expensive than to buy them individually from several different more expensive sites because the shipping cost was WAY more on this "cheapest site". So in this case it is best to show a list of SEVERAL sites that collectively carry all of the items where the final tallied price is the CHEAPEST!

So, i propose a new shopping comparison site that:

1. Assuming the site's location detector via your IP Address is incorrect the user can input their geographical location (to better take into account tax costs, over-the-border duty costs, and valid Mail-in-Rebates for the area, shipping costs,etc)

2. User selects items of interest AND the minimum and maximum prices for each AND whether the search can bring up SIMILAR items (incl. matching review score) in case their items are way more expensive than the range allows. Or the user can adjust a "Fussy Search Selector" slide-bar so other similar items can be selected over the ones the user did want to get better possible prices.

2. User selects time when shipping would be ideal (e.g. immediate or at a later time -- this could help for certain rebate specials like the 4th of July specials -- the site makes this aware to the user for approaching deals on items), whether MIRs (Mail-in-Rebates) should be acceptable (some people hate them since companies dont usually honor them), delivery date limit, etc.

3. The site then looks up all available promo codes, and online retailers (incl. Asian sites) for the best possible prices for each item and the best combination for all of these items when bought together using all of the users preferences.

4. A presentation is made of the best prices (lowest to highest) for the collection of desired purchases alongside the retailers offering them, user review link for the item of interest, and special information about the combination (e.g. applicable duty charges, or MIR deadlines, and expected delivery times).

I have never seen a site out there that does this -- it would save me a lot of people a ton of time when shopping online for the best prices.

corezz, Jun 09 2010

[link]






       Just go to NewEgg.
phoenix, Jun 09 2010
  

       Going to Newegg doesnt solve the problem. Buying several items at once doesnt necessarily mean your cart total at Newegg is the cheapest in the world, and it wont include the cost of duty charges, etc. I hope you read my entire proposal.
corezz, Jun 09 2010
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle