Know When Prices Are Dropping
Some new web companies are beginning to use sophisticated price trending tools, long the preserve of Wall Street traders, to more day-to-day, mundane purchases. Do they work?
Read/Write Web once again does the heavy lifting with its explanatory piece on complex charts and when to buy, based on the inflection point. According to R/WW: “The best time to buy is at or near the inflection point, but to forecast the inflection point one has to consider the slope of the growth curve. Historical information sheds light into the rates of growth, as well as length of the pricing cycles; and it helps estimate where the prices are headed tomorrow.”
So, who is using it?
Farecast is designed to be a “travel oracle” for people who plan their trips just slightly in advance. After you fill in your dates and destinations, the service shows you price trends for the last 90 days and then issues a recommendation on when to buy the ticket. R/WW calls Farecast “impressive.”
Mpire uses a similar approach to help people save money on products. An easy-to-understand demo with Crocs is on the site's homepage. It shows the trends of prices from eBay, Amazon, BestBuy, Walmart and thousands of online retailers). The price of Crocs (from $22 on the auction sites to $31 at retail) is going up. Buy 'em now.
Comments