InvisibleHand

[bsn1989]

Hey guys,

I heard the fellas on TWiT talking about this. It is an add on for Firefox that works on a lot of websites, Newegg, Tigerdirect, Wal-mart, Amazon, etc. It checks the prices of the product you are looking at with other websites and finds you the best deal that it can. It saved me 20 bucks on a Corsair Power Supply. :) I don't think I am breaking any rules here by posting this. So I guess just check it out for yourselves because it is pretty neat. :)

[MadMan007]

I just want to know what price search engine it uses because for some reason I doubt they have their own, it seems like a front-end add-on for a price search engine, and even if they do have their own it's probably doesn't find any more information than other price searches. That way I could price search myself without an otherwise useless add-on.

[disk11]

Here's their website: http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/?locale=en

No mention of them using pricegrabber, etc., which could suggest they do it on their own but who knows.

[Chixofnix]

A link would have been helpful: http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/ [EDIT: too slow! lol]

It's a nifty idea, but effectively it's installing a semi-intelligent "banner ad" onto your browser. From their own FAQ page:
How does InvisibleHand make money?
If you buy a product after clicking on the button in an InvisibleHand notification, the retailer pays us a small commission. The price you pay is not affected by the commission. It would be the same price regardless of whether you used InvisibleHand.

Also...

Why don’t I get a notification every time I browse a product?
There are two possible reasons. The first is that you’re already browsing the cheapest retailer for a particular product. The second (more likely) reason is that InvisibleHand doesn’t yet cover that product or retailer. InvisibleHand is still in beta and we’re gradually growing our coverage of products and retailers. There are lots of products missing at the moment, but we’re working hard to fill the gaps as quickly as possible. Check out the Products & Retailers page for more info on what we cover.

I found a product at a better price than the one suggested by InvisibleHand. What’s going on?
InvisibleHand is still in beta, so there are retailers it doesn’t cover yet. We’re adding new products and retailers as quickly as possible. Check out the Products & Retailers page for more info on what we cover.

In summary, they make money by making the retailers pay them with every click. If you are searching for the best deal, you will never find it unless that retailer/reseller/etailer has signed up to shell money over to Invisiblehand.

In practice this means it can only ever be at most equally effective as other price search engines - it's hampered by the same problems of commission agreements.

The real nail in the coffin for me however is this: http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/retailers?locale=en
They have 52 retailers. Most of which are huge department/bigbox/national stripmall stores. The retailers they have on a leash include a number of established "techie" etailers, but by and far nowhere near the number I'd want to see to install an extra add-on.

This may sound critical, but it's blatant that this is an add-on which is collecting and sending off your browsing behavior to be shared and purchased by parties unknown.

If you find this handy, power to ya, but I'll also suggest you keep pricegrabber/google shopping/eBay/your local craigslist bookmarked, and use those to supplement your own manual searches in the places you know and trust.

[bsn1989]

Well, survey says no one at ocforums likes this idea. Oh well :) I of course have craigslist, ebay, newegg, and spoofee bookmarked and search them myself. I just thought it was kind of neat and wanted to share. :)

[scott d]

I like it, it works pretty well. I was looking at things on Amazon and it actually found the same stuff for cheaper from another seller on Amazon.

It would be nice if it took into account shipping charges though.

[Robin Landy]

Hi,

I'm the InvisibleHand founder. I saw the discussion and I thought it might be helpful to answer some of the questions that've come up. Hopefully that's not against the forum rules.

Re: price search engine. InvisibleHand uses its own comparison engine. It's not a "white label" of an existing price comparison site.

Re: retailers. We're always looking to add new retailers - whether they're "big-box" stores or the smaller "techie etailers". Let me know if you have a favourite store that you'd like to be included, and I'll do my best to get it added.

Re: affiliate agreements. We're very open about how InvisibleHand makes money. And that's the thing: we couldn't afford to build and maintain InvisibleHand if we didn't receive a small commission when a user completes a purchase after clicking on an InvisibleHand notification.

The affiliate model is well established, and nowadays most online retailers - big and small - operate affiliate schemes.

Re: personal data. InvisibleHand has never sold browsing data to third parties. Additionally, it does not collect any personally identifiable information.

Re: efficacy. A key difference between InvisibleHand and the 'regular' price comparison sites is that InvisibleHand's prices are generated in real-time, while the other sites rely on the prices from retailer feeds which are updated relatively infrequently.

Also, InvisibleHand is able to 'see' the product price on the sites of retailers who try to 'hide' it from you until you put the item in the shopping cart.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any further questions, comments or suggestions.

Robin.

[dfonda]

Nice of you to check in Robin.

[Chixofnix]

Hi,

I'm the InvisibleHand founder. I saw the discussion and I thought it might be helpful to answer some of the questions that've come up. Hopefully that's not against the forum rules.
First Robin, it's wonderful of you to take the initiative to sign up here to address these concerns. It speaks very positively for Invisiblehand and has had an instantaneous effect on me.

I was probably not adequately considerate and sounding overly critical, but I was blending in a general criticism of price search engines/affiliate realities which does not help you in a constructive criticism perspective. With that in mind let me re-address some of my concerns in a way you might find more helpful :).

Re: price search engine. InvisibleHand uses its own comparison engine. It's not a "white label" of an existing price comparison site.
Good to know.
Re: retailers. We're always looking to add new retailers - whether they're "big-box" stores or the smaller "techie etailers". Let me know if you have a favourite store that you'd like to be included, and I'll do my best to get it added.
If I were in your shoes, then some missing vendors I would want to see included in your affiliate list, based on my personal experience and purely on the concept of ensuring people are exposed to the best price, would include:

ZipZoomFly
monoprice
Jab-Tech
NCIX
cheapbatteries.com
eBay <-- but with an option to turn it off
One's local/chosen Craigslist <-- but with an option to turn it off, also see discussion following
woot.com
1saleaday.com
dealextreme.com


Regarding CL... I'm not sure how feasible that would be considering how people don't follow any particular format when posting ads, but I'd be impressed even if it were only partially functional, perhaps filtering out ads where someone puts $1, "WTT," "WTB" or no amount in the listing title.

If those were all represented, I think I'd feel much more compelled to have this in my browser as a supplement to my normal price hunting activity.

If you are looking for further suggestions regarding retailers an audience such as ocforums members would like to see, I would be remiss to not mention browsing our Vendor Discussion (http://www.overclockers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=10) subforum. You've also found Cyper Deals, obviously ;).

Re: affiliate agreements. We're very open about how InvisibleHand makes money. And that's the thing: we couldn't afford to build and maintain InvisibleHand if we didn't receive a small commission when a user completes a purchase after clicking on an InvisibleHand notification.

The affiliate model is well established, and nowadays most online retailers - big and small - operate affiliate schemes.
Again, I don't want to sound like I felt such affiliate realites are "wrong" or "bad," as they just "are." The thing that irks me is that by nature, the business model becomes exclusive of retailers rather than inclusive, which is a conflict of interest with the "find the best deal" mindset. To that end, I and others should recognize a fully inclusive price search engine (more akin to google's price search) would have it's own serious flaws as all kinds of retailers you wouldn't trust your money with get included in the search.

To that end, what is Invisiblehand's stance on how you determine whether a retailer, assuming they want to sign up with you, is worthy of exposing your userbase to in terms of their resellerratings score or other measure of "trust?"

Re: personal data. InvisibleHand has never sold browsing data to third parties. Additionally, it does not collect any personally identifiable information. What potential is there, should management turn to less scrupulous hands someday, for this situation changing? Is there some manner by which you put into place mechanisms allowing you to change the statement "hasn't done this yet" to "cannot feasibly do this?"

Also, in good faith I've reviewed your privacy policy (located here (http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/privacy)). I'm no lawyer, but I have some specific questions related to the items I'm about to highlight:
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

When you use your Firefox browser to search for products on certain retail websites, the Add-on enables your browser automatically to check other similar sites to see if other retailers are offering the same product at a lower price. If that product is available on a different site at a lower price the Add-on will notify you of the lower priced product and provides you with a link to the third party website offering the lower priced product.

FIG does not collect any personally identifiable information from you through your downloading and use of the Add-on. FIG does, however, collect the following information via the Add-on:

the url of the site that you originally search for your chosen product on.
the characteristics of the product that you search for.
the url of any site that you visit that is notified to you by the Add-on.
other anonymous technical and routing information relating to your product search and any visit that you may make to a third party site that you were alerted to by the Add-on. This information may include your IP address, but you will not personally identifiable from this information.
For what reason are you collecting the behavior of specific IP addresses if not to sell such collected information to others? I have my guesses but I am curious to know.

Personally, I think your FAQ should disclose that one's IP address can be very much used to "personally indentify" an individual via your stored information and the associated ISP along with a subpoena. Law enforcement wouldn't have it any other way ;). A good summary on the topic, with a fun little IP lookup tool, can be found here for the curious: http://whatismyipaddress.com/staticpages/index.php/can-someone-find-me

SECURITY AND DATA RETENTION

FIG employs security measures to protect the information that it collects from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. FIG may retain the information that it collects for a reasonable period or as long as the law requires or permits. I'm sincerely curious, how long does the law require you to hold the information you are collecting?

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

FIG may disclose the information collected by it to (i) any third party to whom disclosure is necessary to enable the Add-on operate as described above (ii) any person to whom disclosure is necessary to enable FIG to enforce its rights under this Policy (iii) any holding company or subsidiary of FIG, (iv) any purchaser of any of the assets or undertaking of FIG or any purchaser of the Add-on

Could you provide some example of the four cases you are describing here? I'd like to play devils advocate and set up the following paraphrase for you to respond against:
"We reserve the right to give away/sell information we've collected to:"
(i) Any of the retailers who require this information of us in order to be convinced to join our list of retailers,
(ii) Any companies/individuals (retailers or not) who require a "teaser" of our collected information, so that we may convince them to buy more of that information from us
(iii+iv) Anybody who we own or owns us, now or in the future, who may use such information in ways we can't predict today.

Again, I am no lawyer, and I expect I and many others here might learn a lot from your responses to the above legalese questions regarding privacy of our information. Please take these questions as they are: queries from an individual sincerely interested in the nature of such information-based business practices, and how they could affect me and the many others to whom I might want to recommend this add-on.

Re: efficacy. A key difference between InvisibleHand and the 'regular' price comparison sites is that InvisibleHand's prices are generated in real-time, while the other sites rely on the prices from retailer feeds which are updated relatively infrequently.

Also, InvisibleHand is able to 'see' the product price on the sites of retailers who try to 'hide' it from you until you put the item in the shopping cart.
This is something I personally find exciting - I have noticed most price search engines never include "fire sales" and 1-day deal type websites such as woot.com. I think the capability to circumvent feeds is something you should really exploit! :)

Thanks again for your feedback - I'm looking forward to your further responses! :D

PS: You might also want to PM I.M.O.G. to get yourself onto this list: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=623562
And of course, :welcome: to the forums.