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Website Idea - Price Tracking Database

by NDContrarian
6 replies
I have an idea for a website where consumers in a specialized industry can self report prices of goods specific to their industry. This is an industry where participants typically buy goods in a just-in-time fashion and there's very little price transparency. They end up paying whatever price their supplier gives them. I want to help these users by creating an online tool where they can report and compare their local prices to those of users across the country.

I've attached some screen shots which (very simply) visualize my concept

How hard would this be to develop/implement? Are their any out-of-the-box tools that allow a non-programming person (me!) to develop a web-based database like this (with the user interface)?

Any input is greatly appreciated!
#database #idea #price #tracking #website
  • Profile picture of the author Sodaware
    If you haven't done any programming before, I would highly recommend looking for a freelancer or two to help you build this. ODesk is a good place to start, although it can take a while to weed out the bad developers (and there's no shortage of them sadly).

    A good plan would be to either hire someone or find a friend to really flesh out your concepts, and then start contacting businesses to see if they'd be interested in signing up for your product. That way you don't end up spending time and money on a product that nobody wants.

    Hope that helps
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    • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
      There's quite a few existing scripts that do this. Google "price comparison script".

      Unless you have loads of cash and a very talented php developer who you trust, then it would be much easier (and cheaper) for you to use a pre-existing script than to have one created from scratch.
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      • Profile picture of the author NDContrarian
        Thanks, after a quick search there are a few good price comparison scripts/themes out there. But I can't seem to find one where users/visitors can submit their own prices.

        If you know of a script where users/vistors can submit prices to already posted products please post a link. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author ALicenseToCode
    I think you should take a step back from developing this and ask how yourself how you're going to get people to use this. Do you have enough contact with the people in your industry to know if they would put in the effort to self report their prices, because it seems to me like most people would have very little motivation to do so. You may have to incentivize users to put in their price data at the beginning to build up a burden of social proof that your site is the place to go for this.

    Also you may have suppliers that just put in higher prices so that everyone thinks they're getting a good deal. Without a lot of verification on your end the integrity of the site might be suspect.

    You don't want to have a chicken and egg problem where you spends months developing something without a strategy to get people to use it. If you already have a solid strategy I apologize for going on so long about it, but if you don't I recommend you look into putting something on paper. You want to be able to put said paper in front of one of your industry's customers and have them look you in the eye and tell you that it's a great idea and they'd like to use it.

    Hope this helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author NDContrarian
      Thanks for the feedback.

      You bring up a good point about suppliers posting. I'll need to think about that.

      I've tested the concept with multiple industry sources and they showed a lot of interest and willingness to participate in a price reporting site. In addition, I have a mailing list of 500 or so industry participants to help the site get some traction.

      At this point, I'm hoping to put an initial site together for minimal cost and let users help me optimize it (the Minimum Viable Product concept).
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  • Profile picture of the author John Ayling
    Yes, the minimum viable product concept is crucial for startups like these. Just make sure that you have a very clearly defined scope of what you want the first version of the site to be like.
    A good way of doing this, and essential really, is to mockup every screen of the site.
    You can get someone to help you that understands UI interaction. The best software I have used to do this is Balsamiq Mockups.
    The key is clarity before any coding is even attempted and/or quoted for.
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