“So we figured that if we could find hundreds of “Robs” and pay them to keep our product inventory with the lowest prices on the Web, we’d have a business.”

Do you do a lot of online shopping? Then you know the challenge of choosing the best merchant for a particular item. Should you go with the least expensive price? The most well-known merchant? Choose a higher price to get “free shipping”? In a universe of choices these factors become even more critical when you’re evaluating higher-priced items like electronics, gps devices, or digital camera. That’s where the website BeatThat comes in handy. We talked with Founder and CEO David Parker about the saving benefits of his site.

What spark produced the concept for BeatThat? Was there a specific incident, or just a general frustration with locating the best deals online?

We had been managing product comparison sites for a number of years – helping consumers decide on the right digital cameras (digitalcamera-hq.com) for instance – and we saw that our visitors would always follow the low price offers from the merchants we displayed. But it was Rob, one of our engineers, who alerted us to the fact that he could always find better prices than what we were displaying. Rob’s a deal hound – he knows all the deal sites, he knows how to sniff out coupons and rebates, he knows how to evaluate merchants for trustworthiness. So we figured that if we could find hundreds of “Robs” and pay them to keep our product inventory with the lowest prices on the Web, we’d have a business. We chose “beatthat.com” because we pay people to “beat that” deal that’s already there.

Here at Geezeo our community members rate financial products like credit cards and bank accounts. This allows other members to get some real-world feedback before selecting a product. Similarly, BeatThat offers consumer satisfaction transparency with big ticket purchases like televisions, cameras, and gps devices. How do people get involved at your site, and what are the benefits?

The intent of BeatThat.com is to have the community of “Deal Finders” and shoppers essentially run the site. Deal Finders find the deals and submit them; our software screens the deals to make sure they’re accurate, and then if needed we do a human screen, but then we rely on the community of shoppers and Deal Finders to let us know if a deal isn’t accurate. We also encourage shoppers to give us feedback on stores generally, and based on those comments and store reviews on other sites, we have divided our stores into three categories – Green, Yellow, and Red. Green means “go for it” – the site’s trustworthy; Yellow means “be careful,” shoppers have had some problems; and Red means “you’re taking a big risk, and maybe you shouldn’t buy from this store.” Red merchants tend to use “bait and switch” tactics or have terrible customer service. Shoppers can also sign up to receive daily emails on price drops for products they’re watching. So pretty much all of the content on the site is user generated.

How can using BeatThat save someone big bucks?

BeatThat.com is all about saving money. We have been looking at our prices versus “street prices” – what a ‘normal’ Internet shopper would consider a good price – and the deals our Deal Finders find are in some cases up to 70% less than street prices. These days, every penny saved is a big deal, so we’re helping people save pennies up to hundreds of dollars. We’re confident that shoppers will be extremely challenged to find better prices on our products!

What are other fiscal benefits associated with using BeatThat?

The most interesting side benefit of using BeatThat is that we have Deal Finders who are making thousands of dollars a month! For people who are good at finding deals and have the time, BeatThat.com is a nice way to bring in some extra income. We have Deal Finders from all around the world.

What’s the best story you’ve heard so far from members who use your site?

Here’s one that arrived recently out of the blue: “Thanks about the warning on technodigital. I was about to purchase from them and then came upon your website. I just ordered from PCNation which made me feel a lot better.” Here’s another: “Awesome site! Very helpful!” And on our press page there are a bunch of accolades: http://beatthat.com/home/press

Thanks, David. Are you seeking the best possible prices and customer service? You should start your shopping at BeatThat. Great at digging through the web to find the best price? You could earn some spending cash by sharing your tips. Enjoy!

Further Reading

• Have a Hobby? Make Money! (0)
• Want Financially Responsible Kids? Start Early (0)
• A Youngster’s Guide to Investing Early (0)
• Avoid Debt (1)
• 4 Ways to Get Fashionable Items for Less (0)

Tags: BeatThat.com, Credit card, Customer service, David Parker, Digital camera, Kids and Teens, Online shopping, Saving, Shopping

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Fun Spending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.