As never before the ability of online networks has the potential to shape the world.  Tumpang is preparing to take advantage of this dynamic by offering people who come together online the ability to put their joint purchasing power to work.

The Tumpang model is interesting.  Manufacturers are asked to discount their products if Tumpang can guarantee a group purchase of a certain quantity of items.  Then, within their site, they offer the items for sale at the discounted price providing enough people agree to purchase the item at the discounted rate.  As individuals the customers may not be able to get these ‘bulk’ discount prices – as an online mini-purchasing group, they suddenly have more power.

Tumpang is currently focused on the Chinese market…but are making moves to go international.  There are two obvious challenges at this point:

Products are often country specific so although they have international plans, this may not translate well for the mini-groups.  Will a German purchaser be interested in a kettle for the Malaysian market? See my point?

Most of the products on the site at this point seem relatively low quality i.e. Tumpang does not seem to be striking deals with Apple, Panasonic etc but rather more unknown brands. However, as their purchasing power and traction increases this should give them more negotiation strength with the bigger, more popular manufacturers.

So, Tumpang is one to watch.  This crowd purchasing approach could create another shift in online purchasing.

Andrew
Founder -Advisor Garage
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

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Bringsome is a pre-beta, very early stage company and website that has ‘legs’.  By legs, I mean it has the potential to expand it’s service offering and revenue streams as the business grows.  So what is BringSomes business?  Helping people connect together to BringSome products from one country to another.  No, don’t think illicit drug trade mules importing bad white powder from obscure countries, think someone with a passion for flavored liquid non-dairy coffee creamer in China that would pay a small fee if anyone from the US happens to be about to jump on a plane to Beijing.  Imagine the scenario ~Mum, Dad and the kids have decided to live and work abroad but little Johnnie has a twinkie fetish – that’s where BringSome comes in. But not only that, given the price differences across country boundaries, the enterprising can use BringSome to make some extra cash.

Business Model:
BringSome does not, at this point, take a ‘piece of the action’ i.e. there are no fees for ads, no percentage off the top if someone ‘buys’ a product from another member, in fact the revenue model is currently limited to:

• Paypal donations
• Ads (Google and a few locally generated image ads)

Some Core Functionality:

• Place ads and a little ‘please bring me X because’ note along with a product shot of the item you need
• Contacts are kept private.  If you can deliver the desired product, you can ‘email’ the requestor via the site and sort out how to trade
• Very simple, quick and easy signup.  No long ‘tell me your inside leg measurement’ forms.
• Personal message center along with forums, a place to ‘Hurrah’ when you get the adored item
• Search by text or location / country or just browse
• Polls and Who’s Online

Likes:
A nice niche which could be easily expanded as BringSome gains traction.  The BringSome system is beta and somehow the lack of control and member driven content gives it a real people helping people feel.  Makes me feel closer and less removed from the community.  It would be great if Dave could somehow keep that ‘feel’ as the site scales.

Dislikes:
Just a few questions/concerns:

• There’ s very little traction building tools within the site i.e ‘Send to Friend’ or similar on each ad or page.  There are some slight elements of bookmarks and one overall ‘ Send to Friend’ but that is site wide rather than on each product.  I would recommend more member driven traction building tools especially as I may not be traveling soon to Beijing but may have a friend who is.  A perfect opportunity to send the ‘Creamer’ ad to them so they can help out the Beijing creamer fetishist!
• The site requires some logistical challenges on the back end to work.  Example, I’m travelling to Beijing and want to take that desired creamer.  I email the Beijing member and we agree where to meet so I can give them the item.  This means I have to take time out while in Beijing and find a place that I may not know to meet a person I may not know to give them creamer.  In some ways this could actually be quite interesting. It could also be a pain in the rear.  One idea – I would definitely bring the creamer to Beijing in exchange for a local person to show me briefly around Beijing.  A great way to see a new place and perhaps make a new contact or friend.
• Is there any responsibility for the site to outline legal restrictions? Are there certain goods that are illegal in one country but not in another?  If this is left to the individuals to figure out, there could be some issues down the line for a small number of members and perhaps the site (?)
• Web 2.0 sites are tough to really get going even in one country – for BringSome to work it requires decent numbers of members in multiple countries which is tougher! But you know what…I think Dave and BringSome will actually do it and I think it will because of the member driven, personal ‘feel’ that the site has through user created ads without the ‘Ebay’ish’ template other sites have.

Suggestions:

• Lost revenue opportunity:  Not requiring members to set a finders fee for the item they need and taking a little piece or charging for ads.  But perfectly understandable as it’s very early days for BringSome.  Something tells me the site will probably go that route when they reach what they feel is critical mass.
• The site requires the ad creator to write where the item they need is from.  There is a field for their location but it would help ‘matches’ if members can search not only the requestor’s location but where the requested item is from.  So, I’m in the US and I’m about to travel to China.  If I go search China ads I’ll need to wade through ads from people in China wanting items from everywhere before finding ads for items needed from the US.  Not a problem now as it has a small membership, will be an issue when BringSome skyrockets!

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would BringSome virtual investment of $2o0K! Especially if someone can bring me some Cadbury’s Crunchies from the United Kingdom to the United States (NJ/NY). Crunchies in New York just DON’T taste the same! Try not to sit on them during the flight over, they melt!

http://www.BringSome.com

Interested in other articles about BringSome.com?

• http://www.coolbusinessideas.com/archives/bring_some_over.html
• http://gridskipper.com/travel/everywhere/bring-some-foreign-goodness-finder-282176.php
• http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/hungry-expats-rejoice.html

Andrew – Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

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The creative guys behind the recently reviewed ‘HireThings’ were kind enough to answer some of the questions that came up and give us a sneeky peek into how they will be moving their already exciting business foreward…Thanks HireThings!

“Nahum Wild | hirethings.com | IP: 131.203.101.14

Hi Andrew, great article.

You’ve obviously done your research and flicked around our website. To answer some of your dislikes/questions:

We are in the process of pushing out the charging functionality in the next week or so which includes a couple of changes to our documentation on the site. The main change being that success fees for bookings will only be created two days after the booking has been completed. This gives the supplier time to update the booking with what actually happened – if it differs from the original agreement. For longer bookings we’ll actually charge a success fee two weeks into the booking and with longer terms we are investigating either a fixed rate or staggered success fees over the booking’s duration. We’ll be watching for people that always cancel their bookings too )

The administrative side is going to be a challenge, but I believe that we’re up to that and have the right people for the job. Controlling what is and isn’t on the site will set the mood for the whole concept, it’s a delicate balance of professionalism / business and community. Do we allow hugs or not? We’re still pondering that one.

Yes, obviously repeat customers bypassing the system once they and a supplier have made the initial contact could be a problem for us. Same type of issues that auction sites undoubtedly have. We plan to learn from them and offer a service with awesome value and features that keeps people coming back to and using the site.

Recently a fantastic User Interaction expert joined the team which we are very excited about as this allows the experience to jump up a notch, including tidying up some of the obvious clutter etc…

We’ve got heaps of cool additions planned, so watch this space!

Regards,

Nahum Wild
Development Manager
www.hirethings.co.nz“

++

If you would like to have your say or ask any questions, come along to the “Have Your Say” forum above.

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

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Continuing on with online P2P hire theme, here’s a new one from New Zealand.  HireThings is a P2P rental marketplace across multiple categories spanning products, places and services that offers hourly, 4-hour, daily, week, and month rates.  HireThings has a nice ’look and feel’, and easy to use and intuitive interface.  Nice design & UI guys!  

Business Model:
HireThings has a nice and simple business model…if the item you put up for rent is rented by someone, you pay HireThings either a percentage or a percentage plus cash combination depending on the value of the hire.

Value of booking*     Proposed success fee (incl. GST)
Up to $100               5% of hire/rental fee charged. Min charge $0.50.
$100 – $250              $5 + 4% of hire fee over $100
$250 – $500              $11 + 3% of hire fee over $250
$500 – $1500            $18.50 + 2% of hire fee over $500
$1500 +                   $38.5 + 1% of hire fee over $1500.

Max fee per booking = $100.

In my opinion, simple and transparent business models are always the best and this one is nice and clean given that people only pay when they have secured a hire and make money themselves.  No speculation investment required. This should help adoption…oh yeah, and they do not seem to be getting involved in the visually distracting adsense model. Thanks Guys!

Some Core Functionality:

• Members can created a ‘trusted network’ and can choose to only offer items within that network or the broader full site network
• Listing, photo upload, multiple categories including services and place hire…
• Customers can view listing’s details and submit a quote or booking request
• The Hire Things website calculate an estimated cost for the booking
• Renters are notified by email of the new customer request, and can confirm or respond with a firmer quote.

Likes:
A nice and simple concept, business model and execution -

• I like HireThings UI and the clean, fun graphics – it was a simple site to figure out and use
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice angle that could help adoption and friend referral
• If a person rents an item, the renter has the fee deducted from their topped up account – simple

Dislikes:
Not so much dislikes as potential ‘watchouts’ or concerns:

• If the fee is deducted from the topped up account when the transaction is confirmed, what happens if there are challenges with the rental? i.e. item not received, received but not functioning, item not returned, item returned broken – you get the idea. 
• Are any of the above challenges on HireThings to resolve? If so, hope they have a big admin staff…
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice idea but assuming you add your ‘friends’ and ‘contacts’ to this network – why wouldn’t they just contact each other outside of the system and offer to lend them the articles without incurring the commission?
• Keeping the quality of the listings is going to be a challenge as this grows…for example, there is already a listing for “Soft or Hard Hugs” in the services section – now I like hugs as much of the next guy but to hire a 3rd party? Hummm….see that blue flashing light yet? Shame there’s no photo…

One little suggestion for the HireThings guys…the front page of items is hard on the brain given the range and categories of products meshed together…you may want to create a categorization or perhaps quick read icons for the different categories.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would ask them to ‘Let’ me virtually invest $350K. 

http://www.hirethings.co.nz/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

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