Brief History (Conceptualization Stage Again)

Back to the drawing board.

To make it work online with limited resources, we have to partner with a third party to provide us product data. We searched on the Internet and we found http://www.programmableweb.com/ to be very useful. You can find links to thousands of mashups on the web.

We are listed on that webpage too. (Click here to see our page)

On there, we noticed that one of the big players in the online shopping comparison market is providing APIs for publishers to put prices info on their own website. That was great for us. We did not have to pay for anything and could get commission through leads. All we had to do was to restructure our website and promote our site.

Brief History (Production Stage 2)

After days of thinking, reorganizing and researching, we decided to go for the online world!

To the infinity and beyond!

We signed up accounts with companies such as LinkShare, commission junctions, performics ... etc. that provide search engine marketing, affiliate marketing and product datafeeds.

Because the model of the business process changed, the structure of our website had to be changed too. We spent a few weeks to make the changes and the design of the website was getting better.

We were trying to organize different datafeeds and to structure the data in a way that would be easy for users to search for products on our website. It was a HUGE mistake. With our limited resources, we were trying to do research and development work to complete with the big guns in the market. Guys, can you believe we did that?

Although time was wasted, our spirit was not completely flushed to the toilet. Without this failure, we would not come up with the ideas that we have right now; and AskShoppy.com would not exist.

Brief History (Production Stage)

The website of GTAPrices.com was built during the time when I was in the master program. The web design was awful.

Once the website and the backend system were built, the hard part came. My friends and I had to make cold calls, walk store to store, and hand out flyers to potential customers. These tasks were especially hard for us that we hadn't never done any of these before, though, it was fun.

After we signed with a few local stores, we also registered an account with a company for getting product content such as images, description, specification...etc. It was a BIG mistake. It costed us a big % of our available cash that we are still recovering from.

As we signed with more local stores, the more data that we had to process. The time we had to spend on processing the data increased since the data from stores was not uniformed. After awhile, we knew the local comparison shopping engine idea would not succeed.

Brief History (Conceptualization Stage)

AskShoppy.com is a evolved from GTAPrices.com, a local price comparison engine.

It all started in a fall season when I was working as a coop student in a public telecommunication company. I was looking for computer parts online, doing researches on local newspapers and asking my friends about where I could get a good deal. Then, I realized that there was not any website that could help me make a good decision on where to buy the parts in local stores. Froogle, ShopLocal and others were not good enough, at least, they didn't have data about the local stores in Canada.

So, I started bringing all my thoughts together, asking my buddies to join and thinking that I could make a big fortune out of it.

Even, I came across a new master program that is completing with the current MBA programs. It is called Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Techology (MBET). I applied, enrolled, and graduated from this program a year later. During the time in the program, I used my idea (GTAPrices.com) for my projects in business process, strategy and e-business courses; and the material I learned well prepared me for starting my dream, my business, and my new life.

Welcome to AskShoppy.com

Finally, there is a blog for AskShoppy.com. The website has been up for awhile and we finally have time to make a blog for it.

This blog is to post whatever we feel like and the progress of the website.

Stay tune!