A Website That Fills A Customer's Wishes

What Is The Need?

There are numerous successful websites that offer daily deals on various types of products. Sites like woot.com and yugster.com are some of the most popular. However, all these sites use a "push" strategy. That is, they "push" or promote a specific product or type of product to their potential customers, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. They partner with various manufacturers or importers to offer certain items at a good discount, with no input from their audience.

The Idea

More than ever, the time is ripe for entrepreneurs to tap into the social market in order to deliver products and services that consumers really want. Consider this: Who doesn't love a bargain? Better yet, most people have a wish list of items they'd love to own, especially if they can get their hands on them at bargain-basement prices. Now, put these two strategists in the same boardroom together and you have the potential for a successful merger. Translation: you've got your hands on a unique and very successful idea for a business.

By giving your customers the exact daily deal they want, in fact, the exact daily deal they've been begging you for, and offering it at a good discount, you're taking a proven concept and making it even better.

Here's how it works. You'll track down the hottest products of the year, as dictated by your customers, and offer them to your community members at unheard-of-prices.

Consider, for example, enough of your customers are telling you they're bargain hunting for 50-inch high-definition TVs. Then you go bargain hunting yourself to source a distributor or manufacturer willing to offer the product at a steal with enough inventory to service your customers. Rather than giving your customers the "element of surprise" with a mysterious daily deal, you're actually delivering something they truly want. In this way, the buyers, not the sellers, determine what the daily deals will be.

Of course, you'll keep the supply chain happy (and optimized), too. Because the website offers a guaranteed order quantity based on the item's ranking in the "Wish List," your suppliers will know in advance which items you have the customers lined up for like its the day after Thanksgiving (not to mention which ones to quit supplying you cold turkey). Suppliers love pre-orders. It reduces risk and guarantees profits. Plus, arriving on your "Wish List" website may even turn into major brand exposure for the companies involved.

Tapping The Market

Ultimately, you want to cultivate a loyal audience by offering great discounts and one-of-a-kind deals. You'll accomplish this by delivering the goods through a well-written and well-designed website that engages your audience. Rather than marketing directly to targeted customer segments using traditional techniques, we recommend maximizing the spread of information from consumer-to-consumer by utilizing best practices for viral marketing and PR tactics to bring visitors to the site and keep them there. Create an environment where customers can happily (and exponentially!) market their "Wish List" to each other through existing social networks sites such as facebook.com and twitter.com. This idea is very well-suited for viral marketing tactics because users will want to tell their friends about the site to increase votes on their favorite items and get them in the queue.

The Numbers

How does this idea make money? Simple. You'll collect a percentage (e.g. 5% - 10%) of the discounted product price. For example, let's go back to that 50-inch high-definition TV. To keep the math simple, let's suppose the item typically retails for $2,000. Since you've already got 50 door-busters lined up to purchase the product, the manufacturer agrees to sell the TVs to you for a 25% discount, or $1,500. You add a 5% mark-up to the discounted price and sell the item for $1,575. Your customers get a great TV for a steep discount and you earn $3,750 for the day ($75 per item * 50 customers). If you sell one item per day at similar sales volumes, this business will easily gross over a million dollars per year. With all the fulfillment done by the supplier, there is little to no overhead cost for you, leaving you to enjoy the healthy profits.

Who Should Start This Biz

Along with general business acumen, you have what it takes to lead this start-venture if you possess these critical skills:

- Experience with sourcing and buying products from manufacturers

- Familiarity with web development

- A compelling presence on popular social networking websites

Why This Is A Powerful New Business Idea

This idea is not reinventing the wheel. Instead, it's simply making it more efficient. By giving customers a vote, instead of offering only what the sellers want to sell, this idea makes the process more democratic, with benefits to both the consumer and the supplier. And, of course, to the entrepreneur!