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Comment by kayhi | Hacker News Reader

A major problem is that it is time consuming for researchers to comparison shop and contact sales reps. We built Lab Spend (https://labspend.com) which has a pricing search engine for supplies and chemicals to give people an idea if their quote is fair.

"On Amazon, a $100 roll of paraffin film sells for around $25." Seems reasonable

Price Distribution: https://imgur.com/a/YobZnm2

List Price: $71.27 USD

"Can$20,000 ultra-low-temperature freezer" depends on model, but likely overpaid

Price Distribution: https://imgur.com/a/jZer27n

List Price: $20,663.90 USD

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This is really cool! I hadn't heard of you guys before but will definitely be using your service. I can attest to the fact that comparison shopping is a huge time suck in science.

The one exception to the importance of comparison shopping is probably at the very start of a lab. Oftentimes, PIs will negotiate with large suppliers for massive start-up discounts in exchange for buying lots of equipment from a single supplier. (Not relevant to me, but just thought people should know that that is a thing that happens).

Great point that there are new lab and volume discounts. Our data is showing that you should always be negotiating and that pricing is still independent of volume. We've seen cases of companies with 1/10th the spend of others getting better prices by product and overall.

This line from the article made me smile...

"Besides, there’s often no need for aggressive negotiation tactics; most suppliers will accommodate reasonable requests to secure the business of a newly hired faculty member, notes Lisa Witte, president of Fisher Scientific, a lab-supply company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

Of course a person in sales is going to tell you not to negotiate aggressively with them.

That's a very useful tool! Part of the reason that we launched the Atomwise AIMS program http://www.atomwise.com/aims-awards/ was to address the cost of compounds, in addition to the cost of equipment. We use our deep neural networks to pick 72 compounds (out of millions) that we buy, QC, plate, and ship to the PI for free.

Wow fantastic website. Not only useful for researchers, but also for hardware companies that rely on similar equipment.

I will definitely bring this to the attention of my PI.

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