Andrew from PriceWaiter
Q: Andrew, you’ve had an amazing career as an entrepreneur. Can you share with us some of the goals and motivations that drive you every day?
Andrew: Internally, my goal each day is to try and help the people around me get better. I try to create an environment where everyone feels invested in the company and truly cares about each other. Employees will work harder when they feel invested in the people inside the company. We try to give them the resources and tools to be the best they can be every day. The team and people here are what motivate me each day.
Q: PriceWaiter touches on a point that our readers and user seem to have a major issue with retaining and converting customers. You’ve come up with an interesting solution, however. What spurred you to solve this issue and how did you come up with PriceWaiter?
Andrew: PriceWaiter does convert more shoppers statistically. Some retailers have seen an increase of 25% in conversion with us. We noticed a trend in online shopping. Priceline offered negotiation on airfare and hotels, so why couldn’t anyone negotiate on other items? The same items were being sold on different sites for the same price. Customers had no options when it came to finding a good deal without having to go to a local store. This was what inspired us to build our software. We now give retailers the ability to abide by M.A.P. restrictions on products, while giving shoppers the “win” on a deal.
Q: By bringing the negotiating experience online, PriceWaiter dabbles in a little consumer psychology. How has this worked for you, and do you have any instances where it backfired on your users spectacularly?
Exactly. The psychology of a consumer getting a “win” is what drives PriceWaiter. That feeling a customer gets when they get a deal certainly leads to more converted sales. Yes, there are times when a customer and retailer can’t agree on a price and both leave without a deal. However, the engagement alone from that negotiation leads to a higher chance of that shopper coming back in the future.
Q: Being 6 years in the industry for eCommerce retailers, how has the landscape changed during this time? What are the new challenges that new e-commerce retailers have to face, and how are they evolving?
Like what’s happened with media in the last two decades, online shopping has created a 24/7 commerce cycle, with global access, and a global array of product offerings. As a result, it has also created the most efficient market in history. It has changed a lot since 2011. There are so many more marketplaces and e-commerce platforms than there were just a few years ago. As the new platforms roll out, we have to be able to adapt our software to work for them. Retailers certainly face minimum advertised price restrictions that don’t allow them to advertise a product below a certain price. We have to work with manufacturers to make sure
Q: Converting customers online is very different from the traditional brick-and-mortar experience. In your experience, how has the medium affect how people do business, and how has it transcended cultures and consumer habits?
Buyers have more access to more sellers. Sellers have access to more buyers. Such an efficient market removes much of the friction of buying and selling, but this also means that things like “virtual showrooming” start to happen. I founded a company, PriceWaiter, to help buyers and sellers engage with each other in a way that allows sellers to retain both sales and customers, and buyers to shop where they want and save money at the same time, eliminating the need for time-consuming comparison shopping. There are still cultural elements that remain popular and in fact on the rise — for example, in the practice of negotiation — something we see with PriceWaiter every day.
