Never pay retail again.

http://www.employeediscounted.com

by gtdwngtdrty • 17 years ago

24 25 17 years ago

Employee discounts for all.

Cool idea but this won't last. First companies will sack staff they catch on here. I guess you could obfuscate the buyer/seller information but eventually some staff will get tracked down based on their products or the discount they offer or whatever. Secondly, eventually it will just be filled with companies themselves selling the clothes on here right and ultimately moving the average price up. That or this will just work to remove the notion of employee discount.

nostrademons• 17 years ago

"eventually it will just be filled with companies themselves selling the clothes on here right and ultimately moving the average price up"

Dude, that's every online retailer's dream.

This could be a really successful "in" to having an online business. The trick will be to continue adding value after the initial hook has worn off and prices are no longer competitive. If you can make the shoppers keep coming even after they no longer get the employee discount, you have a profitable venture.

cduan• 17 years ago

Companies will sack staff on this site? In this economy, companies will probably reward staff on this site if they move product. Heck, companies will probably just put themselves on the site!

bkovitz2• 17 years ago

Strange but true: Microsoft encourages their employees to get their non-employee friends to use the employee discount.

A sale is a sale, I guess.

knightinblue• 17 years ago

Nice idea, but I think it needs a catchier name. Something with a little more zip.

pbhjpbhj• 17 years ago

EmployeeTheft.com ?

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

OK, so let's say I own a retail store and I see that my company is on here. No problem, I just sign up, have an employee buy some stuff for me so I can find out who they are, and fire them.

I bet that this violates the agreements most employees sign for discounts, which probably says they can only buy for themselves (or maybe family/friends), and that they can't resell the items. So this is fraud, basically.

Perhaps I'll start a site called "EmployeeOfficeSupplies.com" that hooks up people in need of office supplies with people working in offices who are happy to steal them. Or maybe one where I help people "share" their health insurance benefits.

This is stupid.

skalpelis• 17 years ago

Or, I either raise the price or lower the employee discount so that there is a sufficient margin and get all my employees to sign up and profit.

byrneseyeview3• 17 years ago

In other words, you harm the employees who aren't cheating you, and and then you approve of the ones who are?

jwilliams• 17 years ago

The ethics of startups can often be on the fringe - the music industry was completely shaken up by startups there were operating on, or beyond, this fringe. Mp3.com pushed the fringes of copyright (they figured they were in the right btw).

These people were disrupting markets that are broken... Perhaps the coupon/employee/etc/etc system is broken? This has a definite scam aspect that bothers me personally, but it's worth considering how the market has evolved that this can happen.

tome3• 17 years ago

I think this site is a great idea for retail owners. As long as they sell to employees at a profit, this is a really good way of increasing their price discrimination.

Most of those people who are happy to pay full price won't bother using this site anyway. Those that aren't, but are willing to pay the discounted rate will become extra sales the company would not have otherwise had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

[Edit: I don't believe that employees should do this behind their employers' backs, just that it's probably a good idea for the employers to let them.]

kierank• 17 years ago

You're missing the fact that the people that are happy to pay full price are also (as a general rule) also happy to pay less than the full price.

byrneseyeview3• 17 years ago

No, the way price discrimination works is that you set up hurdles that are expensive for someone who makes $80/hour and cheap for someone who makes $8/hour, so you get business from both. If this site reduces the cost of getting a discount, it weakens their price discrimination power.

gstar2• 17 years ago

Sorry to offer criticism, but this is the most unethical thing I've ever seen. Not only that, the market for this sort of trading is already stitched up by eBay, and they do it better by not being so blatant about the source of the discount.

So this product actually does a worse job than eBay - that's no mean feat.

I know sometimes game-changers come about by pushing ethics around - but this is morally wrong in so many different ways I'm struggling to express it.

Purely out of interest, I'd love to meet the person or people who came up with this, but only so I could do my grumpy old man bit about the "me" generation.

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

this is the most unethical thing I've ever seen.

I'm guessing you don't watch the news very often :)

gstar2• 17 years ago

Fair point, so perhaps I should wind it down a bit: it's certainly the least ethical website I've seen launched on HN.

Flankk• 17 years ago

I agree with you in full. Giving other people your employee discount is a method of theft. It is no different than other methods of employee theft such as over-charging customers, identity theft, theft of stock or theft of time. The only difference is sharing your discount is an easier form of theft to rationalize.

This website is a black market and is likely profiting. I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

chaosmachine• 17 years ago

It's a sting operation.

Retailers: Need to cut back on staff, but don't know where to start? Let us help...

diiq• 17 years ago

Everything said so far, and also "employee's".

I mean, taking unethical advantage of a benefit is one thing, but poor grammar? In bodytext frozen in an image no less? Unnacceptable :)

tiomka• 17 years ago

THIS IS SO ILLEGAL

Never pay retail again.

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