Last month Best Buy announced a new social and API-driven initiative to give its web business a boost. The Best Buy Remix Developer Network comes with an affiliate plan that lets developers earn commissions if the traffic they send to BestBuy.com results in a sale.
“When you direct a visitor from your Web site to BestBuy.com and they make a qualifying purchase, you can earn commission dollars,” a Best Buy spokesperson tells Murdok. “The more your visitors buy, the more money you can earn.”
Best Buy has now offered a glimpse into what some developers are doing with Remix. The spokersperson shared four examples with me (descriptions from a Remix fact sheet):
Ribbit Consumer’s Price
The Ribbit Consumer’s Price application provides Best Buy consumers the first voice-enabled, social shopping experience with a major retailer. Through online communities, Ribbit lets a customer define what he/she wants to pay for a product. When the product is available at Best Buy at that price, the customer receives a text or email alert notification. Ribbit also allows customers to make product recommendations to others through texting, email or Twitter. Plus, they can create and listen to product voice reviews, and even view Flickr photos shot by specific camera models. Following are some screenshots from Consumer’s Price:
Glue
Glue lets customers share product recommendations with each other from websites they visit. Glue automatically identifies books, music, movies, wines, stocks, movie stars, recording artists and many other items on customers’ favorite websites. Then customers click the ‘heart’ icon to save the product and click the ‘2cents’ icon to let friends know their opinion.
Dawdle
Dawdle is the premier online marketplace for gamers and independent retailers to buy and sell video games and gear. Dawdle makes it simple to buy and sell online. Gamers and retailers can create “standing offers” with the price they’re willing to pay for the items they want to buy.
iTrackr
iTrackr lets consumers search and compare pricing, and check if products are in stock at a local Best Buy store.
The social element of Remix is big. “With applications built on Remix such as Ribbit’s Consumers Price, consumers can make product recommendations to each other via SMS, email and Twitter, create and listen to product voice reviews, and even view Flickr photos shot by specific camera models available at Best Buy,” the spokesperson tells Murdok. ” With the rapid rise of social networking sites and Web applications, consumers and friends often rely on each other for product recommendations and information.”
Best Buy has no plans to promote Remix in its Brick and Mortar stores, but I’m sure plenty of buzz will be created online. It will be interesting to see where developrs take it. The initiative could drive a whole lot of business Best Buy’s way. More on Best Buy Remix here.
