Pikaba Flips the Internet Buyer Model

Posted in Seth Godin, Social Media Community, eCommerce
Tags: eCommerce, social community

(hat tip to Mashable for the post)

Mashable randomly has a post where they feature an Internet startup. Most of the time I breeze through the post without it catching my eye but Pikaba caused me to slow down.

20 word description from Mashable: Pikaba is a social shopping community offering a reverse auction model where merchants bid for your shopping needs.

Brilliant! Talk about permission marketing at its finest! Pikaba is following the model of Insurance shopping companies on the web where you enter in what you want to pay and the Insurance companies quotes to GAIN your business.

When you join the Pikaba community you can submit a request of an item you are searching for and just wait. This gives sellers the ability to produce a service or product direct to a buyer. If the user base is large enough on Pikaba, this should be a simple decisions for merchants and sellers. This simple decision will only be simple if the buyers make up a large portion of the website.

From Mashable:
Pikaba is hoping to benefit both buyers and sellers by providing a marketplace that is built around consumer needs for defining an actual point of demand. The ads placed by those requesting items to purchase are similar to a regular classifieds ad, with description and images, etc.

I will be keeping my eye on Pikaba. It looks like a great example of social ingenuity at work!

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