The Wall Street Journal partners with UW CSE startup Decide.com to explore pricing trends for gifts during the holiday shopping season:
“The fast rise of online shopping has presented a wealth of data for researchers looking to uncover retailers’ strategies and pinpoint when prices are lowest. Decide aims to use that data to tell its member consumers whether to buy any of a number of products now or wait until later. The company is run by veterans of Farecast, a service that tried to predict whether airfares on specific routes were about to go up or down and was bought by Microsoft Corp. for a reported $115 million in 2008.
“At the request of The Wall Street Journal, Decide tracked the prices of products ranging from flat-screen televisions to Barbie dolls each day for at least two years across a number of retailers and e-commerce websites. The results included the prices at more than 50 retailers, including Amazon.com, Wal-Mart Stores, and Macy’s.”
It’s a really interesting article – read it here.