Buying and selling via Craigslist or Ebay is notoriously simple. It only takes a few simple steps to sign up with either site. Once you’re ready, either you’re selling for extra cash or you’re feverishly looking for that special item. When buying, you’re ultimately hoping to find what you’re looking for at a reasonable price.
But what if you’re not aware of what an acceptable market price is for the item you’re buying or selling? This could mean a few things. It might mean that you put something up for sale and sell it for double its price, or conversely that you end up putting it online and selling it for a value far under the market value.
Also, it could mean that you buy something that is typically expensive for very cheap or that you end up paying double for an item that you had no idea was actually selling elsewhere for significantly less.
How are you to know what the fair market values of second hand items are?
Avoid Getting Ripped Off
Robin Dhar’s startup, Priceonomics, has found a solution. With recent significant investment numbers at $1.5. million, Priceonomics is an online price guide that instantly gives the user a buying and selling price range that reflects the market at the moment of search.
After initial investment from Y Combinator in early 2012 (the company was founded only months before that), Dhar’s startup caught the attention of Spark Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, and SV Angel.
Investors see true potential in the site that uses algorithms to search listings of hundreds of millions of used items online. For example, this includes cars, bikes, cameras, refrigerators, washing machines, or smartphones.
With the newly invested capital, the founders of Priceonomics are the hunt for talent to grow their team. The team’s goal: create an online searchable database/catalogue of every item ever sold through sites Craigslist and Ebay.
The Competition Is Stiff
There are several sites that Priceonomics will have to contend with, however. Sites like PriceSpider, Worth Monkey, and Carsabi each have characteristics in common with Priceonomics. Of the mentioned four sites, Priceonomics seems to be the most robust and most well thought out as it’s not specific to simply one kind of item (Carsabi is for used cars only). There are even easter eggs on the site. For example, try entering “human” into the search box and see what you come up with.
In addition to being able to find a good deal via Priceonomics.com, there’s a handy feature that allows you enter your email address in the box, “I want this at a good price.” This means that if after searching the item you’ve not been able to find an example of it online for sale, the site will send you an email when the product has been posted for sale within the price range that it has deemed fair.
A site that will do the searching for you as long as you know what you’re looking for? Although I don’t currently have any extra cash for that camera I’ve been eyeing, I still say “Three Cheers” for Priceonomics.
