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The Pricefalls story begins in Holland, centuries ago, in a region where floriculture dominated the land. Beautiful flowers of the Dutch have been here for centuries due to factors such as climate, location, and innovation. The sea is near, the temperature is right, and the flowers are gorgeous!
So what does this have to do with Dutch Auctions? Florists' success was quite dependent on the demand of their flowers. Many Florists simply could not sell enough flowers charging a fixed price. Some customers who valued lilies at a high price purchased them, but those who did not want to spend too much bought none. Florists imagined a system where they could sell all of their flowers in one place at one time. They decided to let each buyer decide the price they would pay a novel concept at the time.
The auction began at a price set by the merchant. After selling a few lilies, the price began to fall as a Dutch Auction Clock counted down the time. As time went on, the group of buyers gradually began to decrease until all of the lilies were sold. If some buyers did not purchase any lilies, well, they simply didn't value them as much as others.
Today, when people think of "Dutch Auctions", IPOs and Tractor Trailers come to mind. Pricefalls.com has reformed the concept of Dutch Auctions while maintaining the traditions and values of the system. Pricefalls has brought the Dutch Auction back to consumers at a level capable of satisfying each consumer individually based on their own evaluation of the product of interest.
Like most college students, Pricefalls CEO Elliot Moskow needed to earn some extra cash during the summer. Drawing on his entrepreneurial spirit, Elliot decided to obtain confiscated jewelry from police auctions and sell them online. He started with a few rings and some of them sold. What Elliot did not know was, "Who the heck from Nigeria would be buying rings in Florida?" His gut told him this couldn't be true.
It wasn't. Elliot had received a fraudulent Paypal receipt from a fraudulent user. His venture did not last long. Elliot paid fees to list his items and ended up losing money. Because of this frustration, he decided to stop his venture. Elliot isn't the only one who has been scammed online. He and others have felt frustration in many different areas of online auctions. Bidding wars, sniping, inflated prices; these are the issues that frustrate users.
Elliot is an economics major at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. However, upon his return to Bates, it was a friend that revealed an idea born centuries ago: the Dutch Auction. After class, the idea for a better auction site was born.
It would be a site that removes the user frustrations of bidding wars, sniping, and scams. It would be a site that was more user friendly. But even more than this, the concept of the Dutch Auction was a model that could help businesses and individuals alike. Because of the amount of economic disparity in our world, the idea for a system where bidders could set their own prices under their own individual, unique circumstances, was formulated. Pricefalls was born.
