e-shop: Swap products for products

It was only a matter of time before somebody started a concept like Flip4new. The German e-commerce site focuses on electronics and digital products. That’s not new of course. But there payment method is. Instead of paying with cash, credit cards and so on, customers can pay with other goods. If you need a new iPod, you might pay with your old Nintendo Wii console. The business concept of this e-commerce platform is different from others due to the broad offering they have. Other ‘swap’ platforms are focused on one product or one niche only. For instance, give your old mobile in return for a new one.
In this case, you send in your product and the discount you get can only be used on the same platform. Soon we might see concepts were you can exchange your discount-credits (if that’s a good name) with other platforms as well. A ‘Pay with facebook‘ concept will soon arise. Secondly, people will elaborate on the idea of paying with products. Now only ‘old’ products are being used, but what about products that are being ‘modded’ or ‘hacked’ to become better products then before. A whole D.I.Y. generation is entering the e-commerce scene and they will definitely leave a stamp on the way we look at (online) trading.

Posted on May 31, 2010 in Consumer goods Read more

A Free Disney experience in exchange for volunteer work

Many free business models are based upon advertising while others are based on direct exchange of services. You do something for me and in return I’ll do something for you. Everybody happy! This new approach by Disney combines both methods. In order to get free publicity they are encouraging people to do volunteer work with the Handson Network. When someone gives a few hours of his precious time to such a good cause, Disney will give that volunteer a free visit at on of its theme parks. Visitors of Disney Land or Walt Disney World will admit that this is truly a unique experience. The return Disney receives is off course a better reputation and that without the need to spend big advertising budgets.disney-free-visitWhile more and more charity based business concepts do pop-up, we see that only few of them use it in this fundamental new way. Most of the time a company only promises to donate a part of the profit to charity. By doing this they hope to convince people to buy more goods. All the ‘RED’ products use this method: Charity as a sticker. But in this Disney case there is no direct money involved and that is not a problem at all! Disney is a marketing company, one that sells brand reputation. So anything that can strengthen their reputation will be directly linked to higher profits elsewhere. If you’re a simple product seller you can’t rely directly on such a concept since you don’t have other revenue streams. Maybe in that case a ‘Buy one, give one’-concept will be a more sustainable way of using ‘charity’.

Posted on October 10, 2009 in Entertainment & tourism, Non-profit & public Read more

Irehab.com: Let doctors pay to give you health care

The new start-up Irehab.com tries to take a different approach to health care. Patients can get free advice on how to treat specific complaints. By answering a few questions and looking at several 3D animations, these users should be able to diagnose themselves. To treat for instance ‘back pain’ they can follow step-by-step instruction videos [...]

Posted on August 17, 2009 in Other-industries Read more

A non-advertising based Free business by TruGenetics

TruGenetics understands that the value of genetic profile analysis lies in the combined data of a large group of people. Therefore they decided not to charge their users for individual genome reports in contrast to several competitors. During the first phase of their business, the company will offer this service for free to at least [...]

Posted on June 21, 2009 in Banking & professional services Read more