About Jigsale

WHO: Jigsale was founded by Bill Ricardi (sales and marketing) and Rick Hodger (code, design, and technology) in 2007, for full launch in January 2008.

WHERE: We're based out of Belfast, over here in the U.K.

WHAT: Jigsale is a social experiment in Internet marketing, designed to eventually expose the 'best overall' products available online, as deemed by our users on a DAILY basis. We're a research firm, in essence, that relies on the retail market to keep us alive.

WHY: The million dollar question. Bill gave up a real estate career and a well received writing career to focus his life on Jigsale. Rick spent hundreds of hours honing the technology and the brand. Why?

Well, in the spirit of discovery. We wanted to discover products and services that people are looking for. Not what they 'want', not what they 'rate highly'. Things that they take one look at and say: 'Yes, this will improve my lifestyle.'

HOW: We allow people to guide our discovery process with votes. But not votes for individual products, because that really doesn't help, does it? If you've discovered the product already, you don't need us. No, you'll be voting on the genre of products that are most important to your life at that moment.

By gathering the overall trends towards a certain genre, we'll research products at various levels of price and quality, in proportion to the percentage of votes. You 'rate' the individual products and services very simply: Buy, or don't buy. If you 'like' a product but don't adopt it, then it simply wasn't good enough for your current situation.

This allows us to go back to the drawing board, until we can sort of read the collective minds of our userbase. We'll continue to come up with what we think are the best value or highest quality products and services, guided by the trends that YOU create. And our research is rewarded only when we've done a good job.

In short, we explore the niches that you point us at, and through trial and error based on REAL adoption rates, we find the gems.

WHEN: Now. This is the important bit, honestly. Starting from the day of full launch, we will be changing the products and services every day, based on yesterday's votes. That means when you vote, you are reflecting the desires that you are having RIGHT NOW! If you feel differently tomorrow, if your focus has changed, your vote will reflect that change. The overall, collective act of voting for the 'needs of the NOW' should keep things fresh.

F.A.Q.

Q: Why don't you care about our opinions on individual products?
A: We have to remain somewhat scientific. Opinions are wonderful things, and within the process of looking at quality vs price, we certainly have to form opinions ourselves. However, the only helpful statistic to see how we are really impacting lives is Adoption Rate. Highly rated products that nobody buys isn't helping anyone.

Q: How do voting percentages impact the next day's selection?
A: We display 9 products and/or services that change on a daily basis. That means every 11.11% chunk of the popular vote secures a product or services within that genre. After the 'sure things' are taken out of the picture, a run off of the remainders is conducted.

For example, let's say that Home Theater got 40 percent of the vote, Software got 30 percent, Gardening got 20 percent, and Dating, Camping, and Travel got 3.33 percent each.

Home Theater would get 3 slots for 33.33 percent of the vote, with 6.67 left for the run off. Software earns 2 slots for 22.22 percent, with 7.78 for the run off. Gardening gets 1 slot, with 8.89 left.

With 6 slots assigned, we look at the remainders. In order, Gardening, Software, and Home Theater get the three remaining slots.

This gets much more complex with 16 genres to look at of course, but the concept of automatic slots and a runoff of the remainders holds true.

Q: How do you make money?
A: The vast majority of our funds come from affiliate advertising. We actually have the connections to go out and sign up new affiliate agreements for unique products that we really want to sell online! In the rare case where we find a good wholesale deal, we might warehouse the product and sell it ourselves for retail revenue.

Q: I have the most awesome product in the world! Will you help me sell it?
A: We can have a look! Contact Us. We have one banner slot for flat rate or Pay Per Click advertising as well. We might be looking for special feature products that last for more than a day, if the coolness factor is high enough and demand is there. It would appear as a sidebar, rather than one of the core 9 products.

Q: Are these genres static?
A: Yes and no. We need to keep this first set for at least a couple of seasons to get decent statistical results. But we're always open to suggestions, and who knows what the future will bring?