Somebody to actually *help* you buy stuff.

You tell them your needs and desires. Since they know a lot about the products in their area (e.g. computers, cars), they show you possible solutions. Since they know where and how to get good deals, they find you the deal.

Gets paid a flat rate. Customers leave ratings to prevent corruption. Their charge will be based on their reputation of honesty and ability to find good deals.

I suppose there exist some people working in purchasing departments, who do precisely that for their companies. What I'm looking for is somebody who will do it for the individual consumer.
-- GusLacerda, Aug 08 2001

Baked. http://www.your-shopper.com/
"Just Tell Us What You need how much you would like to spend and we will take it from there." [egnor, Aug 08 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Baked: personal buyers. Quite expensive, so I understand.
-- protean, Aug 08 2001


Sorta baked in the form of Consumer Reports and other such groups. Most niche periodicals also publish 'Top 10' lists for products within their purview. Of course neither of these actually make the purchase for you, but can point you to best-in-class products.
-- phoenix, Aug 08 2001


The idea here is that by specifying your wants you can get an almost-perfect solution for a reasonable price. A static publication could never come close to this, unless we're talking about very simple products, with little variation and customization.
-- GusLacerda, Aug 09 2001


Baked in the horse industry at least....bloodstock agents and trainers. You tell us what you want and how much you want to spend, and we find you the horse. Generally, we charge 5-10% of what ever you pay for a horse.
-- Susen, Aug 09 2001


The individual consumers can do it for each other. Surely few consumers enter the marketplace armed with no information. With your information, my information and a consumer movement for public information, we might actually be smart enough to figure it out.
-- LoriZ, Aug 23 2001


A couple of friends of mine had this same idea but they wanted to call it Cheap Bastard Guys, Inc., or CBG for short. They wanted to stress more the implacability aspect, i.e. people would hire CBG because they would be so much less embarrassed by haggling, etc. that they would get the best possible deal. They would also go back to places whose product or service the customer wasn't happy with and fight for some kind of compensation.
-- magrak, Apr 25 2002


cheapbastards.com, .net and .org are already taken
-- thumbwax, Apr 25 2002



random, halfbakery