Decide.com Launches - Helps Consumers Purchase Electronics with No Regrets

NEW YORK, June 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CE WEEKNY 2011-- Decide.com, a new electronics shopping service, launched today to help consumers purchase laptops, televisions and cameras with no regrets.  Utilizing proprietary data and predictive algorithms, Decide tells shoppers when to buy with confidence or wait for a price drop or newer model to be released.

"Over the past decade the Internet has empowered shoppers to know 'where to buy' with comparison shopping, and 'what to buy' with user-generated reviews," said Mike Fridgen, CEO of Decide.com. "For the first time, Decide is bringing the next phase of transparency to consumers by helping them answer the 'when to buy' question, by predicting future model releases and price changes, so they can purchase with no regrets."

Decide predicts when the next model is coming to help eliminate buyer's remorse.

It is increasingly difficult for consumers to keep up with the rapid pace of new models of consumer electronics [Model Chaos INFOGRAPHIC].  In 2010, on average, Decide observed the release of six new laptops a day, one new TV a day and a new camera every other day.  Decide has also found that many devices have manufacturer announcements or rumors about their next generation one or more months before they are available for sale.

By matching hundreds of thousands of devices to their model lineages, mining the Web for gadget news and rumors, and applying advanced machine learning and text mining algorithms, Decide predicts future product releases to help consumers avoid buyer's remorse.

New buyback programs offered by some retailers are not the answer for most people.  According to Consumer Reports, "In many cases, the cost of the plan will exceed the trade-in credit you'll receive." Decide has a better solution by empowering consumers to make more confident and informed purchase decisions so they can buy the right product the first time.

Empowering consumers is good for the industry.  Decide benefits the CE industry by helping consumers make better decisions on the path to purchase, lowering costly product return rates.

Decide predicts when prices will drop to help consumers save money.

Dynamic pricing in consumer electronics is at an all-time high, creating price volatility and consumer confusion [Price Chaos INFOGRAPHIC].  Conventional wisdom is that prices drop over time, which is generally true, but what is less obvious is prices fluctuate on a daily basis (20 percent of the time) and 50 percent of the time prices go up, not down.

Decide's price prediction algorithms utilize billions of observed price movements and over 40 distinct factors to help consumers save money and avoid getting burned.

"No other team has the technology, talent and experience in predictive systems to solve this problem," says Oren Etzioni, Decide co-founder and computer science professor at the University of Washington. "We've built the only broad-scale model lineage, text and data mining systems that predict future price and model releases to address this complex consumer problem."

How Decide Works

• Go to Decide.com and search for a TV, laptop or camera that you want to buy. (More consumer electronics categories coming later this year.).
• Decide provides a simple recommendation to BUY or WAIT, based on proprietary predictions about future prices and future model releases.
• BUY:  For buy recommendations, consumers simply click through to their seller of choice (Decide has pricing on hundreds of thousands of products, from thousands of sellers, including the top consumer electronics merchants on the Web).  
• WAIT: For wait recommendations, Decide makes it easy to track prices and new product release information so consumers can buy the right product at the right price. Just click on "set alert" to add a product to your watch list and Decide will notify you when the price changes.
• Decide also makes it easy to share your favorite products and predictions with friends via Facebook to get help making that purchase decision.

Decide is optimized for mobile and tablet shopping.  Use Decide's mobile site when shopping at your local electronics store to get the right model at the right price.

About Decide

Decide is a new shopping service that helps consumers purchase laptops, televisions and cameras with no regrets.  The company utilizes proprietary data and predictive algorithms to tell shoppers when to buy with confidence or wait for a price drop or newer model to be released. Decide was co-founded by Internet search pioneer Oren Etzioni and has gained support from consumer Internet and ecommerce veterans.  The company raised $8.5M in venture capital from Madrona Venture Group, Maveron, and angel investors. To follow Decide, visit the company's blog, Facebook and Twitter.  www.decide.com

Note to tech editors and tech enthusiasts: We are grateful to the Consumer Electronics Association and its group of Consumer Electronics Tech Enthusiasts (CETE) for their early support in testing our product. Are you an early adopter? Do you love gadgets? Become a CETE member and get access to the latest consumer products and companies. For more information visit: http://www.ceatechenthusiast.com/

Media contact:
Anne Taylor Hartzell
[email protected] /  206.850.6501  /  Twitter: @decide /  Facebook

SOURCE Decide.com