A new Australian based social commerce system, Alphatise, was launched earlier today. After more than 2 years in the making with $3 million in funding, Alphatise is trying to break the barrier between a seller and a buyer.
With Alphatise, you can submit your price wish on a product that you’d like to buy/own from many popular Australian stores such as Zara, JB Hi-Fi, Target, Coles, Chanel, and many more. Should your wish be granted, you can choose to accept the offer and enjoy the exclusivity given to you by the seller. Or you can reject and share it to a friend.
For example, let’s say you wish you can get the HTC One (M8) smartphone cheaper than its retail price, $899. Within your web browser or through a mobile app (iOS and Android), you can set the amount of money you’re willing to spend for the phone. Alphatise will give an indication of the likeliness the seller will accept the offer. Of course, you shouldn’t take this literally because who knows, you might be able to score a huge win if the seller wants to let go of its stock.
You can also see how many people wish for the same thing, which should definitely increase the chance to have that wish granted by a seller.
You can search for a particular product or even a brand/seller itself (to get a “30% discount offer”, for example).
Here is the promo video explaining how the system works:
I think Alphatise has a huge potential, especially since they have managed to get lots of Australian retails on board. I’m not too sure how the system works when someone is wishing to pay $1 instead of a $2 chewing gum. I mean, I’m not even sure a seller would care about those requests, but let’s wait and see as I put a wish for my cheap shampoo at Alphatise.
The other thing to consider is that I’m pretty sure many consumers would put in crazy wishes (such as $500 for a $1,000 TV), so it’d be interesting to see how this whole system plays out.
Alphatise is definitely an interesting platform, so make sure you check it out and download the app on your device. If more consumers use the system, the brands will definitely put more effort and take notice.
