Wishabi
Wishabi is a Canadian online shopping platfom that is owned and maintained by the Wishabi corporation. Wishabi's mission is "to give Canadians the best tools to make informed shopping decisions".
Coverage by the press has given the platform a variety of different titles, from "social shopping aggregator", to "next-generation shopping engine" to an "online shopping mall mixed with the data-crunching algorithms of a search engine". Wishabi's integration with Facebook Connect and community crowdsourcing program allows it to include a social shopping/crowdsourcing component.
History
Wishabi was founded as an Canadian shopping technology platform by an ex-Microsoft team of entrepreneurs, all of whom graduated from the University of Waterloo's Computer Engineering program.. Their flagship product, Wishabi.ca, was launched on Jan 2009.
Product and features
In accordance with its mission, Wishabi offers a comparison shopping, social shopping and cross-border shopping experience to its visitors. Notable features include price history trending, buy/hold recommendations, merchant valuation, price comparison, price alerts, and collaborative community deal hunting services.
Deal ranking
Wishabi utilizes a patent pending deal ranking system to determine the worthiness of the showcased deals. This ranking system aims to provide visitors with a way to understand the total value of the deal by factoring in pricing, market trends, user behavior, and merchant policies.
The deal ranking system uses a number of metrics to determine the rankworthiness of an item. Using statistical analysis and item reviews, users are shown the market price of an item and a graphical representation of its price history, the latter also doubleings as a measure of the item's price volatility.
Personalized shopping
Visitors can optionally create free accounts with Wishabi, which they can then tailor to suit their shopping interests. They can also create wishlists of items of interest, and have the system monitor and send price alerts and other notifications directly to their email inbox.
Deal Genius purchase recommendations
Wishabi's predictive intelligence service provides visitors with purchase recommendations through statistical analysis Using an iconic Einstein-like cartoon as the face of its proprietary Deal Genius technology, users are given purchase recommendations that ranges from "Awesome deal" to "Average deal" to "Wait for a better deal". Users can also activate the Deal Genius when searching for items through Wishabi's search engine, filtering the results based on recommendation levels.
Cross-border price comparison
Wishabi showcases offers from both USA and Canada as long as the item is available to Canadians. When displaying an offer from US based merchants, Wishabi will convert the price into Canadian dollars and factor in estimated cross-border fees such as international shipping, duties and brokerage to give the visitor a better understanding of the total final cost.
Price history graphs
Each item-specific page incorporates a graph displaying the price history of the item along with the number of merchants selling the item. Using verified data from U.S. and Canadian retailers, the graph allows the visitor to get a better understanding of the item's pricing trends and upcoming availability.
Price alerts
Wishabi users can opt to track certain items of interest, and enable price alerts to be sent directly to their email inbox if and when the item's price drops below a pre-set price range. This price attempts to factor in as many additional costs as possible, such as shipping and handling costs, duties and brokerage fees, to display final price up front.
Merchant ranking
Using information provided by merchants, Wishabi uses a merchant valuation system that incorporates approximately 42 different metrics, such as return policies, warranties, shipping and handling costs, customer service levels, and reviews from other customers. This valuation and ranking is factored into the overall value of the deal, which in turn enables Deal Genius to make more accurate recommendations to shoppers.
Social shopping
Wishabi provides a social shopping experience for its users by utilizing the Facebook Connect platform. Users can log into their Wishabi accounts by using their Facebook credentials harness their existing social connections.
Using this social platform, users can aggregate their demands for specific items by following them, and getting their friends to follow too, which then allows the site to target them with the best offers for that item. Merchants can then examine this aggregate demand and then create offers in order to target them specifically.
Deal Hunters contribute to the Wishabi community by searching and posting deals on various items to Wishabi's listings, sharing them with other users. These deal hunters are drawn from ranks of the shopping community that has built itself around the Wishabi's shopping engine, and are responsible for finding and promoting a sizeable number of deals every month.
Each month, Wishabi distributes a pot of cash with its deal hunting community. The pot is divided amongst the deal hunters based on the number and quality of deals they have posted compared to the total contribution of the entire community. With the deal hunters who have posted the most number of high quality deals taking the largest share. In addition, a bonus sum of $20 is awarded to the deal hunter who has posted the most accurate number of deals that month.