Savings & Investment

Will Shoppers Choose To Find Shopping Deals At Shop Til You Drop?

It certainly sounds as if it could be. The site seems to merge those “penny” bid sites, myriad daily “deal” sites and EBay all into one. Of course, the target audience will be those people that visit sites like that to begin with. This is a site that targets people looking for super shopping deals. There seems to be an emphasis on the fun, so it would reason that regular shoppers will be interested. And, at least on paper, it appears that some real savings could be had

If you don’t mind the stress that comes with shopping under a buzzer, these sites can be excellent ways to score deals on stuff you may have purchased anyway — just browse with caution.

That is probably true, but that could be said for all of those “ shopping deals” type of sites. For that matter, caution would probably apply to all shopping. And this one does sound like it would be fun to try. Shop “Til you Drop just debuted on December 3rd so it is still new, but the concept is interesting:

When you visit the site, three products are featured front and center — a set of dishes, christmas ornaments, a Starbucks gift card. Each is affixed with a price ticker that starts at the item’s suggested retail price and ticks down cent by cent until a shopper decides to “freeze” the deal and claim it. The buyer then has 3 minutes (counted down by a giant clock at checkout, naturally) to pay up before it gets released back on the site.

That sounds a bit harried to me, but the appeal is obvious. It gives one a sense of outsmarting the other guy. At the same time, if the item is something you planned on buying anyway, the shopper has a shot at really good shopping deals. Of course, these site are not geared just to those type of shoppers. The shopoholic is bound to be attracted to Shop “Til You Drop, so it may not surprise you that the founder is from the Home Shopping Network. Still, who doesn’t like the idea of good saving deals? Throw a little fun into the mix and this new website could really be a hit. There is a question of competition though. If it does become a big hit, there will be more of a chance that some people just snap up the products at minimal discounts. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but if the “bidding” becomes so fierce that the discounts shrink to low levels, some of the fun might get sapped away. If it takes 20 hours of bidding to get a 10% off deal on an item, it may begin to feel more like work and less like fun. For now though, there appears to be some genuine opportunities available:

The focus of this month’s offerings are holiday gifts, with sales on everything from jewelry and kids’ toys to iPads and Amazon gift cards cycling through. They merchandise the site themselves and use an algorithm to decide how low they’ll go on a particular product. Browsing this morning, we saw a $300 iPad Mini go as low as $170 before the deal disappeared.

Not bad. This should be a fun company to watch in the months ahead. The concept sounds as if it could attract a lot of interest. After all, saving 40% or so while “playing” the game could be quite enjoyable, not to mention a bit addictive. Starting off during the holiday season will certainly give the company an idea of interest right away. Let us know if you have tried the site and what you think, PrimeRates readers!

It certainly sounds as if it could be. The site seems to merge those “penny” bid sites, myriad daily “deal” sites and EBay all into one. Of course, the target audience will be those people that visit sites like that to begin with. This is a site that targets people looking for super shopping deals. There seems to be an emphasis on the fun, so it would reason that regular shoppers will be interested. And, at least on paper, it appears that some real savings could be had

If you don’t mind the stress that comes with shopping under a buzzer, these sites can be excellent ways to score deals on stuff you may have purchased anyway — just browse with caution.

That is probably true, but that could be said for all of those “ shopping deals” type of sites. For that matter, caution would probably apply to all shopping. And this one does sound like it would be fun to try. Shop “Til you Drop just debuted on December 3rd so it is still new, but the concept is interesting:

When you visit the site, three products are featured front and center — a set of dishes, christmas ornaments, a Starbucks gift card. Each is affixed with a price ticker that starts at the item’s suggested retail price and ticks down cent by cent until a shopper decides to “freeze” the deal and claim it. The buyer then has 3 minutes (counted down by a giant clock at checkout, naturally) to pay up before it gets released back on the site.

That sounds a bit harried to me, but the appeal is obvious. It gives one a sense of outsmarting the other guy. At the same time, if the item is something you planned on buying anyway, the shopper has a shot at really good shopping deals. Of course, these site are not geared just to those type of shoppers. The shopoholic is bound to be attracted to Shop “Til You Drop, so it may not surprise you that the founder is from the Home Shopping Network. Still, who doesn’t like the idea of good saving deals? Throw a little fun into the mix and this new website could really be a hit. There is a question of competition though. If it does become a big hit, there will be more of a chance that some people just snap up the products at minimal discounts. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but if the “bidding” becomes so fierce that the discounts shrink to low levels, some of the fun might get sapped away. If it takes 20 hours of bidding to get a 10% off deal on an item, it may begin to feel more like work and less like fun. For now though, there appears to be some genuine opportunities available:

The focus of this month’s offerings are holiday gifts, with sales on everything from jewelry and kids’ toys to iPads and Amazon gift cards cycling through. They merchandise the site themselves and use an algorithm to decide how low they’ll go on a particular product. Browsing this morning, we saw a $300 iPad Mini go as low as $170 before the deal disappeared.

Not bad. This should be a fun company to watch in the months ahead. The concept sounds as if it could attract a lot of interest. After all, saving 40% or so while “playing” the game could be quite enjoyable, not to mention a bit addictive. Starting off during the holiday season will certainly give the company an idea of interest right away. Let us know if you have tried the site and what you think, PrimeRates readers!

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