WorthMonkey: A Worthwhile Site

Nov 22, 2010 Published under Interesting Random Stuff, Science and Technology

A recent New York Time article points to a new useful site called WorthMonkey, aimed to help users determine if used goods for sale are fairly priced or not.

The New York TimesBucks - Making the Most of Your Money

November 16, 2010, 4:34 PM

Pricing Used Goods for Sale

By JENNIFER SARANOW SCHULTZ

A WorthMonkey results page.WorthMonkeyA WorthMonkey results page.

When you want to sell a used good, figuring out how much to sell it for can be a laborious process involving checking multiple sites and sources online.

Enter WorthMonkey. The site, a little over month-old, aims to do the secondary market pricing work for both sellers and buyers and present them with what it believes is the fair price.

“We really do want to be the Blue Book for used anything,” said Fred Abler, who co-founded the site with Tony Casparro.

When a user enters a certain good at the site, the site combs the Web (eBay, Amazon.com, Google) for asking and actual prices for that used good, combines that data with information about broader category trends and statistical analysis and then presents the user with details about a great price, a fair price and an overpriced price for that good as well as pricing information for comparable products.

Users can also enter their own thoughts about what the item is worth, which then helps inform future site results.

Currently, the site provides such data about millions of products in 10 different industries, including vehicles, electronics and musical instruments. Once users have the fair market value, they can “use that as the basis for negotiation, and we just take a little bit of the friction out of re-commerce,” Mr. Abler said.

The site is free for consumers and eventually, the founders plan to release a subscription offering with added features. The site also collects affiliate advertising revenue when users click on the comparable products whose pricing data it provides. Those selling goods can also embed WorthMonkey seals into their ads to show where they got their pricing information.

How do you figure out how much a used good is worth before you buy or sell it?

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