” Who remembers using ads in the “Items Wanted” sections of their local newspaper? How many people still do this? Of course, there are modern, on-line equivalents but they represent a tiny proportion of the introductions between buyers and sellers for used items, let alone new items. Surely this is not due to the lack of sellers wanting to know about potential buyers. So, could it be due to a lack of appetite that buyers have for inviting sellers into a conversation?
The concept of so-called Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) has been around since the year 2000 when it was mentioned in a prediction of future trends in the US edition of Computerworld magazine.
Customer Purchase Intentions – There must be a better way by Paul Weston on Primary Customer Data
‘Tell us, and any other vendors that you trust, via an intermediary that we all trust, that you are expecting to be in the market for something. Give us as much detail of your interest as you wish and we will offer to connect with if you think we can help. We will not know who you are until we each digitally sign a simple information sharing agreement. You then share just the information about yourself that you want to and we contact you to explain what we can offer. Finally, whenever you wish, you can withdraw your buying intention and either opt to remain on our contact list or ask to be removed from it.‘ “
The technology has been available to allow consumers to have some agency over their own data and to be able to share their purchase (and other) intents with vendors, securely, for specific purposes for specific periods of time. These are highly qualified leads that via programmatic advertising, vendors pay top dollar to be able to access these customers during a search or social media posting.
However the idea of a consumer placing a request for something they want has not been widely adopted for consumers. Before the web, this happened in classified ads, it happens in federal procurement. Back in the day, the Want it Now feature was available in eBay but it was never popular.
Since the advent of mass production and mass market retailing, vendors have been optimized to lay out their stall and consumers purchase what is available. Customers would only place an order for items either out of stock or custom made. To change that model, or to even experiment with something new is an unnecessary requirement.
A faceted search experience on Amazon will capture all of the attributes necessary for a consumer to state their need. If they do not convert, Amazon has that history in the users’ profile and can re-market to them via display ads on other properties and via email campaigns. Yet the customers’ request still not made directly available to vendors.
In financial services where risk products such as loans, mortgages and insurance are easily configurable, the insurance aggregators like Confused, Compare the Market and Money Supermarket take a customer’s requirements and credentials and broker those out.
However, the true 4th Party Experience is still not available for most customer needs. Customers are fragmented, their needs and priorities widely disparate that they are still content browsing available inventory. As logical as it seems now the web allows each person to publish their requirement, it is still not the most cost-effective solution for the vendors.
UPDATE JULY 21, 2020
Adevinta will be acquiring eBay Classifieds Group – creating a set of classified advertising proposition covering 20 markets and covering 1 billion people with 3 billion monthly visits.
Press Release on the eBay Classifieds Group’s website: Adevinta to Acquire eBay Classifieds Group to Create the World’s Largest Online Classifieds Company
If ever there was a place where consumers could make a request and have vendors or owners of a matching item see that demand and respond, this is probably it.