Priceonomics: Your Secret Weapon in the Price Wars

Tired of plowing through pages of search results trying to figure out how much an item is worth?  Had enough of paying too much for second-hand purchases? Fed up with infomercial announcers asking you obvious questions? Have no fear – “Priceonomics” is here.

Priceonomics, a startup by Y Combinator, is live now – and can help you save money when purchasing used goods online. The service crawls the web in the background and collects prices across all conceivable categories of goods.  It then works out an average price that you should pay for your item of choice, and prominently places that above a list of product options. You can then browse the available options and choose one that catches your fancy.

The service also adds a few features that make it more compelling. You can narrow your searches by adding location information, keywords or a specific price. One great feature is the ability to notify you via email when a product is available in your price range. That feature goes some way towards addressing the website’s one major flaw.

I am like everyone else and love getting a good deal. With visions of a nice android tablet at a low price I entered by manufacturer and model of choice and hit the magic button. In a very short time I was presented with an extensive list of options along, with a recommended price. I was smiling at this point and proceeded to click the best deal – only to find that the item had already sold. So I clicked on the second best deal. Item already sold! I repeated ten times in all and, on every occasion, the item I wanted was already sold. It is something that CEO Michael Flaxman and his team should work on – and soon. The answer is simple enough — remove listings that are no longer available. Those listings, if the number is sufficiently large, could also give a warped figure for the overall suggested price. We don’t want to know what the optimal price was, we want to know what it is now.

The service will also prove valuable to sellers by providing them with a good estimate on how to price their products. The universal scope of the service makes it a unique experience that has huge potential. Fix that one flaw Mr. Flaxman, and this could be the next big thing.