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Idea Overview:
Why spend time and money developing a product that nobody wants? What if you could sell a limited edition to your target customer groups to find out if they are willing to pay your sale price. Would this give you confidence to develop/manufacture your product? Would this give potential investors confidence to finance your venture? I'm proposing developing an e-commerce site similar to Amazon but for limited edition, not on the market yet, products. Buyers get to be first in line, receive a limited edition product and help validate a customer need and price before expenditure on development and manufacture. The model is similar to crowdfunding where the money is kept in escrow until the product is delivered.
Who might use it/where it might be used?:
Anyone who has an idea for a product that can be sold on Amazon is a potential seller. Anyone who wants to be first in line for a limited edition product that can be purchased on Amazon is a potential buyer.
The Market (B2B, B2C or Both):
Both
Sector the idea belongs to:
Retail
Is there a similar idea to be found?:
I haven't found a similar one.
Why you think there is a demand for your idea?:
I questioned a community of founders and mentors about what they would like to see to help them validate their ideas with customers. This was the most popular of the ideas they came up with. On the buyer side, there is plenty of demand for pre-sale products on crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Who would be the ideal customers?:
The core customers will be early adopters who want to be the first to get the product. Ideal customers will be those that are ideal for buying the particular category of product through e-commerce sites such as Amazon.
What ideas do you have to reach these customers?:
We plan to first target the books market in the way Amazon did. Our approach will be to use PR to publishers and author sites as well as social media to the book trade. This is low hanging fruit for us given our contacts in the industry.
How far have you developed this idea?:
We have developed an MVP based on free e-commerce software and have contacted some small independent publishers who have agreed to participate and have provided us with some books to test. We have established relationships with printers and financing companies as part of an end-to-end solution to deliver the books to the buyers.
What – if any – feedback have you had for this idea so far?:
Feedback has been positive from the book trade but we haven't pursued feedback from the wider market yet. It would be useful to get some feedback in the comments section of IdeasNest or by email to simon@12ronnies.com
What supporting material – if any - would you like to add to your proposal?:
Here is a link to our prototype/MVP for books - https://www.pre-sale.co