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syncfu.com

14 pointsdejan38 comments

Okay, so from my vantage as an electrical manufacturer the point of syncfu is to help me achieve economies of scale. The more people that purchase, the more I can lower my price.

You don't currently obligate buyers to make an actual purchase, so the price that the other buyers pay might be too heavily discounted. For example, 100 people reserve, but only 20 actually buy - in this case I might not make a profit since the per unit costs for 20 are much higher than for 100.

I'd rather see a similar grouping mechanism that requires full commitment from both buyers and sellers, like ebay does. You'd probably have to do this with accounts, points and validation.

As for the actual purchase you could do this:

The seller creates a graph of price vs size of the production run, as now. They specify how often they would like to do production runs (sales).

Each buyer specifies the maximum amount they would be willing to pay, by clicking on the purchase graph. They specify how long they are willing to wait until it reaches that price. They enter all their credit card and billing details into the system, and have made a promise to purchase at that price or below.

When the sale ends, the system attempts to solve the graph for price. Everyone who "bid" above this price pays the solved price, everyone below is moved to the next run, unless their stated "latest date" would be passed by waiting that long.

You then bill everyone who said that they would pay. You make the lump sum available to the retailer who then satisfies the orders. This way there is no risk to a buyer that they will pay more than they want, and no risk to a seller that you will set the wrong price.

When I say solve for price, what I mean is that

- 1 person chooses the 1 user price (A)

- 2 people chose the 5 user price (B)

you solve, 1 user (A) gets the 1 user price, they get billed, B moves into next round (unless their time limit has expired)

now more people come along

- 5 users choose the 10 user price (C)

- 6 users chose the 12 user price (D)

+ 2 people chose the 5 user price (B)

So now you can manufacture at the 13 user price because that will satisfy everyone.

To make a reservation (a pledge) of future purchase, the potential buyers are charged small fee. This makes the reservations a bit more reliable, as no one throws money just like that.

The seller doesn't consider these as actual purchases yet. It is only a demand aggregation, meaning grouping people that care strongly about the price. After the deadline or max quantity, the item closes. At this point the seller gives real payment instructions, but at a different price. Of course there is the risk that not all will complete the purchases but isn't that already included in the price? The seller can count lets say a 50% completion rate already when making the prices?

What you described is awesome and a real hacker's view. I think it is very cool and have to admit I have been thinking similar in this direction at the beginning. But.. I have an obvious problem getting this solution explained to a hacker community (see my comments here). I wonder how I would explain the solver to consumers and sellers. :D I need a solver for a headache later.

Thank you for awesome reasoning and comment! For sure will think about it deeper now.

I gave it a bit of a thought. Maybe this can be done post-reservations. The solver would consider how popular the item was, the prices at which people accepted to participate and the lowest achieved price. According to all of this, the solver would calculate the suggested item price.

That's cool, I might do that, just for fun.

I wouldn't limit the usage to only manufacturing and operations management. I am trying to keep it as a universal tool.

Thanks again for valuable thoughts.

What I want is for buyers to make a real committment. The major difference between my system and yours is that buyers can say "I don't want to buy it for $1000, but if it reaches $600, I am in. Here are my credit card details if it does"

[Edit] Is this what all your competitors do too? I didn't mean to remove your point of difference, but perhaps this way works better.

All competitors do as you say - take the credit card info and store it. Only if price reaches the threshold, then they are charged. I believe a different approach should be tested against, as the resistance to making a commitment is lower.

The assumption is that if the price gets discounted at all, that becomes the best offer online.

This is very cool idea, but the whole thing gives me the impression that it was developed without customer feedback.

Is anyone using it? Group buying is something that can be done without any special tools. If people are already doing it, then there are probably group buying forums out there that could use your support in making them more efficient.

If people aren't already doing group buying, then the real work is in convincing people to do it! If you don't already have connections to merchants who are doing this, then you need to find them, or start doing it yourself.

I hope this works out for you, because it seems like an awesome idea. The app looks good, but comes across as being a technical tool, rather than something that generates sales.

If people are already doing it, that is no reason not to try something different =) Currently, major group buying happens on GroupOn and Buywithme, as well on their European copycats. However, they are pretty much limited to services, as the prices are easiest to rip-off a percentage cut. BuyWithMe e.g. takes 20-50% of the price for them. That doesn't seem right to me?

Sure, the biggest challenge is in convincing merchants to actually use it. However, I think I will start with own goods first (3 retailing companies here).

I will see to change that to be a more sales feature instead of technical.

Thanks for the great advices!

Sounds fantastic, it's great that you have some early customers. I'm sure they'll give you some good feedback.

I hope you post again in a year or two to report where you business is at!

I tried to do the demo, but was asked for an email address. While I trust that you won't spam me, I don't understand why I have to provide an email address for demo purposes. If you are going to provide a demo, I would recommend either doing a video, some screenshots, or have a demo that doesn't require any interaction from the end user.

I think the problem with your homepage text that others have noted is not so much in stating the concept of the problem the app solves, but really in stating what the benefits are to both the buyer and seller. Most suppliers are going to understand economies of scale, but many buyers are concerned more with end price. You have to convey to the buyer WHY economies of scale is better for them. With that done, you also need to convince suppliers that your app will increase sales for them.

The email is absolutely needed as this is the contact point between the seller and the buyer. I didn't go into modifying the demo component but used actual. As I see, most people use random mail addresses to test it out, so can you. It is just an address to which confirmation is delivered with the discount codes.

That is good, I think you're right and will consider doing that. Thanks for the comment!

Got ya. You may try to come up with a way to do the demo without the email address for users. If I had just stumbled upon the site, and thought it may be something I would use but was not quite sure, the first thing I would do is try the demo. If I immediately saw it ask for my email address I would feel like you are scavenging addresses and move on to another site. If you absolutely require an email consider clearly stating that up front and the reason why an email address is needed for the demo to function.

Good advice, will change that. Thanks again for the advice!

Anyone else notice how the Hacker News domain extractor messed up on this post? It shows up as (syncfu.com#dosyncfu) on the front page and direct on the item.

#dosyncfu is the autotrigger hash, when added it will start the group buying box immediately upon DOM load.

It should have been stripped from the title, which usually shows (google.com) say

I don't know if its just because its late here and I am bit tired but I didn't get the concept yet.

I understand what group buy is but not sure what problem your website solves?

it's late here too :) well, the webApp solves a problem of aggregating price-aware customers that would accept buying the item later but at a lower price.

It isn't for everything, but selected products/services. It is similar in concept as GroupOn & BuyWithMe, except it is more a bare-bone feature that is easy to setup and customize.

It may also be used for promotions, let's say in digital goods, since the target price can be set down to zero.

It is a system that groups buyers together so that the seller can use economies of scale.

The more buyers, the lower the price.

To be frank, I can't imagine signing up to use this service. It is too easy to build into almost any shopping cart system.

Why go through the process of integrating with a 3rd party and all the logistical and viability nightmares that come with such a decision when it's a trivial problem to solve in the real world?

Good point, but why isn't it already if so? E.g, Shopify? Shopify actually lacks even per-item discount codes.

Group buying isn't a proven feature for websites, nor is it cross-site interaction universal. Visitors have to know what it is and trust it in a form of knowing what to expect and what not. That is the space SyncFu should occupy.

Basically, SyncFu is just a free* version of Groupon, Buywithme etc. The main reason for developing it is bringing this feature to any website without the 20-50% fees that these sites snatch. The only cost is the reservation fee, and it is charged to the customer, which is a dissolving cost.

You are certainly right about big vendors, if you throw a bunch of resources, it is too easy - but most little/medium web-shops deploy custom, features-less shopping carts - e.g. all the customers of Groupon and BuyWithMe.

Plus, I have no clue how would any company justify any costs of developing such a concept / experimental "feature". Well, for sure it isn't happening since there is very little innovation in online payments. Therefore this simple thing is isolated for any company to deploy on chosen products/services in a very simple manner.

Besides, this little component offers more than just group purchasing. Promotions are easily made, e.g:

- free signup for the first 100 reservations (price goes down to 0)

- pre-orderings of future books, directly by the author

This is of course my personal opinion, but SyncFu was built to verify the hypothesis :)

Thanks for the comment, and regarding the too easy, well, it took a long time to ditch features and shape minimal single feature product - praising Unix philosophy. The js code is of course publicly available:

http://github.com/dejanstrbac/SyncFu-Widget/blob/master/widg...

I see the case where someone using shopify could want to do something like this. If enough shopify users ask for it, they could add it, but it's a pretty esoteric feature needed by relatively few shops, because traditionally, individuals shop individually, rather than with a group.

Group buying isn't an unheard of concept. Many buying groups pool their resources to receive discounts on large orders from manufacturers. This could be a feature for such manufacturers to add to their ordering systems.

Still, the hurdle if integration is going to be a big one for you. For example, how do you let syncfu know how many products you still have to sell? How does the store owner coordinate sales such that they don't sell more than have been requested to buy from syncfu? Why would a seller want to sell their goods at a reduced price to the same individuals who are likely to buy it individually anyway? Also, you still have the logistics problem of shipping all those orders from the "group" to the individuals who grouped to get the discount so as a store, your margins decline due to increased overhead for lower sales. Discounts for large orders are usually only possible because there is reduced overhead in shipping and account management.

I think you may have a hard time selling this feature to stores. However, if you create a competitor to shopify that has this as a feature, then all the shopify customers who want to sell this way could be potential customers for you.

Great comment, highly appreciated!

"because traditionally, individuals shop individually, rather than with a group"

Exactly, but if there was a possibility in general to buy in bulk with random people at the same moment, it wouldn't be traditional? I agree with your view, but one just has to disagree with the traditional in order to see what is possible today with all this social bits flying around.

As I've mentioned group buying exists in GroupOn for example, but it is insanely how much the sellers lose. With such a component they could provide the same services. Yet, there is no "target" quantity where the discount becomes available, as it happens immediately with each reservation. The quantities are set by the seller, and for sure are not infinite. The seller really has all the power over the group purchasing.

Once the item is closed with either its deadline or maximum quantity, the seller can provide with payments instructions and a deadline for actual payment. I doubt all will complete the payment, but most of them will. The seller of course counts on this when setting the price, so the risk is the least.

I've been digging a long time, but I haven't seen the concept with "reservations" as SyncFu. Do you know any? All of them I know would take your CC info first, and charge once target is met. (That is one way how SyncFu reduces friction in comparison)

The whole point with SyncFu is about laying down some grease in online payments. There is a lot of space for innovation in online payments as well usage of micropayments as sales catalysts, not actual charges.

It looks interesting, but I'm REALLY confused as to what I'm looking at with the graph, countdown timer, lowest price, etc.

What is all that junk? Why does the graph show a price in $000 but the price per unit is $2.00

In the demo given, price per unit is $2000. The $2 are reservation fee paid through a cell phone / cc as a micropayment.

'Buying' doesn't actually happen, only reservations are made to 'participate' in the group purchase. After the deadline expires (the countdown timer), the item closes and all that reserved get a notification that it closed. Now the seller contacts all those (the admin side supports it), and tells them that they have 72h to purchase the item in the existing shopping cart with the discount code provided. That is of course if there is a shopping cart, otherwise an invoice or payment request can be sent, but that is however completely a matter of the seller.

There is no mediation, only a reservation making tool that is easy to setup, use and configure. Thanks for the comment, I see how that can be a bit confusing.

you have way too much text on your site and not nearly enough pictures

lol. Thanks, it's nice to have a laugh this late :) (Sorry, I'm not being sarcastic, just it's a common misunderstanding)

Well, it says it's a webapp, not a rock band's fan page. People are actually ment to login, do their stuff and leave. I wish I could dump that login too, but it is the collateral damage of shifting apps to the web.

All the text is there to help the technical people searching for answers, but the actions are clearly shown. I doubt one can't find her way around.

I wonder when will "webapps" truly be understood as different than websites. I am comparing webapps to desktop apps, not to brochures. Am I alone here?

I think you're missing the point of this feedback - the UI is confusing so it is making it hard to grasp the value of the service for a first time viewer. you might be suffering from being too familiar with your product, and only dogfooding from the "logged in an clued in" perspective

this isn't about webapps vs. websites vs. desktop apps, it's about the importance of communicating the problem you're solving clearly and having a big f*ing button that makes the call to action completely clear

Thanks for the comment. I hear you, but what is confusing about this UI? If 4 sentences are "too much text", then hell, how people understand others in the same field that induce more complex processes: http://www.groupon.com

Big f*ing button is there, in size and color.

IMHO, this web app doesn't need to be explained a whole lot. Those that hear "Group Buying" and understand what it is from those two words, they'll know how & what & where. After all, this web address is meant for sellers, not buyers.

You use Javascript to create that button, it will not show up if you have NoScript. It's not even clickable. Just letting you know. :)

(yes, I was confused too)

Edit: And to be honest, if you are asking for feedback it would probably be a nice idea to just nod and smile at peoples advice instead of getting into some kind of argument as to "what people think". Most people here are ... err, people too. :)

I wonder if anyone really does have js switched off today. It is the era of the rich web experiences. And if he does, he for sure isn't interested in this. I could tweak it so that button has a href when no script, but I wonder about that. Today almost any web app relies heavily on js.

I tried GetSatisfaction without JS. Crash and burn too.

However, I'll think about it. Thanks for the comment and advice. I wasn't thinking of going into any arguments, I respect the differing opinions ;)

Its confusing for anyone, seller or buyer. And if it confuses buyers, sellers wont use it.

I still don't really get how to use it after reading the site and your explanations. Why is there a P vs Q graph? What does paying a fee upfront entitle me to? What is a reservation and what does it give me?

I'm a first time consumer, and you've just thrown a complicated buying method at me, with a graph, current price/lowest price, for which I have no clue how to follow. I think it needs to be bared down to the minimal information necessary.

[updated]

Isn't it obvious that price drops with quantity?

A reservation is a pledge that the customer will purchase the item later. The reservation costs $1-3 depending on where the buyer is, and is paid through a cell phone. By having it be paid, it is simply more reliable. No one wastes money, and these are dissolving costs in the total discount.

I believe this is the minimal information. The unit price, the current and the maximum quantity price. What do you think is excess?

Thanks for the comment.

Both your website and your widget must be able to answer these questions within 30 seconds for the most ignorant, distracted user with 3 children trying to climb into their lap.

This user might have never bought online before, and if they have - they have no idea what the backend order process looks like.

Answering these questions here is only a beginning. If _anyone here_ cannot get your site before getting frustrated, you haven't explained your system well enough yet.

Remember, the majority of users (by a huge percentage) are going to see your widget first. Your widget is going to advertise your solution to potential sellers who see it on someone else's website.

If _any customer_ gets frustrated at your widget, it is going to get pulled from sites.

good points; I am thinking on how to simplify and better present this concept. Thanks for the comment!

They are comparing you to web-apps like this: http://getsatisfaction.com/

You need to get better at distilling your messages into just a couple of words.

Although similar in technique maybe (SyncFu uses an iframe), they are very different in what they do.

This is a starting point for the destillation. Thanks for the advice, I am thinking about it.

Yes, they couldn't be more different in their product. My point was that many webapps have very slick designs.

Another one http://highrisehq.com/why

Remember when writing your words - almost all of your potential customers know nothing about group buying. Those who already know what it is have probably got a solution already.

that is true; I guess my assumption is that everyone know what it is. I am thinking about explaining it visually, instead all those wordings. Thanks again!

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