Dreieinhalb Jahre nach unserem Beitrag Worauf Investoren wirklich stehen hat sich peHUB die Penny Auction Szene angesehen und beschreibt den Investoren-Boom bei Swoopo, BigDeal & Co (im Cache):
"Numerous startups have come up with innovations based around online
transactions, including payment platforms like Offerpal Networks,
exclusive luxury shopping sites like Gilt Groupe, and group-buying
businesses such as Groupon and its many clones.
But the newest class of e-commerce startups to capture the attention
of VCs are so-called penny auction sites, which combine online auctions
with game mechanics. Users of these sites — hoping to land expensive
items at a deep discount — make small bids on the wares during limited
windows of time.
peHUB gibt auch einen guten Überblick über die aktuellen Investorenaktivitäten:
"In addition to Swoopo, similar sites to garner VC include London-based MadBid.com, which raised $6 million from Atomico Ventures in July, and San Francisco-based BigDeal.com, which raised $4.5 million from Foundation Capital, First Round Capital and Mayfield Fund last year and sealed up another (previously undisclosed) $10 million from its investors in February.
Competitors that have sprung up in the past year include BidRival, BidRodeo, BidCactus, Dibbing.com and Beezid. None has disclosed any venture funding — yet."
Auch wenn sich die Dienste voneinander in ihren Details unterscheiden, eins haben sie gemeinsam:
"And while their models vary -– Dibbing.com drops the price of an item with each bid, while BidRodeo has promotions, such as promising 50% more bids for users’ second purchase of bid packages — each is premised on enough people bidding on the same item to both cover the item’s cost and produce a healthy profit for the startups."
Eine spannenden Ansatz verfolgt BigDeal, das im Februar noch einmal 10 Mio. Dollar bekommen hat:
"To distinguish itself from sites like Swoopo, BigDeal lets users who’ve lost auctions to use their unrefundable bid dollars in BigDeal’s virtual “loyalty” store, where they can apply them toward buying items like $200 necklaces. (Put another way, users can recover their bid dollars by spending even more money.)
Users who get outbid for an item on BigDeal can also apply their bid money toward a “buy item now” option, paying the same price for the product that they would at, say, Amazon."
Der Ansatz von BigDeal reduziert das Risiko für die Nutzer, die Auktionsite zu nutzen und Geld zu verlieren ohne ein eigenes Erfolgserlebnis zu haben. Oder, was vielleicht noch wichtiger ist: Es suggeriert eine Senkung des Risikos. Denn das verlorene Geld – und mehr – wird am Ende doch (über BigDeal) ausgegeben. Sehr cleverer Ansatz.
BigDeal hat zumindest große Ambitionen:
"Still, it has big ambitions to become the “Zynga of e-commerce,” in part by broadening its offerings to include housewares and luxury items like fine jewelry, as well as by layering in a number of other new “games” into its paid-auction model."
Hierzulande ist Spreadbooster eines der bemerkenswertesten Modelle im Bereich der Preisdynamos (s.auch Tolles Projekt sucht tolles Team)