I found the real reason why comparison platforms for marketplaces don't work. I have seen these ideas multiple times even on Medial. There you go: "Can I say something without people getting mad friends? I have had people pitch me this idea for years now. Both for ride hailing as well as other marketplaces. It does not work. All marketplaces already use their competitors' price as an anchor for their pricing. If you can scrape prices of items on these apps and render it on an UI, be confident that these players are also doing the same. But base price does not determine final price you pay. Every user segment (read my differential pricing post from 8 December 2024) will have different add on fees. And discounts. So you cannot calculate the final cart value. Even worse? There is no business model here. There is a natural friction between affiliate products and merchants. Merchants want to own the user relationship. Want the user to open their app by default instead of going to an intermediary. 15 years back it used to work. E-commerce was new. Every site wanted traffic on their platform. So coupon sites were pretty popular. Over time affiliate commission declined and a lot of these products became irrelevant. Yes, you can run ads. But it won't be meaningful enough. And the discrepancy between pricing you show and what users will end up paying will lead to low retention. Source: Know a thing or two about both marketplaces and affiliate sites." Source: mjs/x
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