A weekend road-trip set off a chain of ‘what if’ thoughts for a better Internet. Setting: I found myself driving past my old college stomping grounds and, for whatever reason, thought to myself that it would’ve been nice to have had a mature system of e.commerce available back in the day. It was the kind of fleeting thought that would have normally stopped there, but, being the only person awake in the vehicle, it triggered a further thought… It would’ve been really nice to have had a device that allowed me to shop perpetual clearance merchandise.
You see, in college I was poor, and each time there was a big thing at a place with girls, I could’ve got online and shopped the virtual clearance rack rather than get in the car, drive to the nearest shitty mall, and buy something I couldn’t afford.
The idea of online shopping assistance isn’t new, but a push towards discoverable formats for all online retailers could make the experience exponentially more rewarding.
The push would start with simple, standardized markup tags [a la microformats] for data that would let the world know this item is a men’s 44L Trovata sport coat on second markdown for $139.99, tax/shipping included. An example of this spec would be:
<span class=”c_style”>Men’s</span>
<span class=”c_size”>XL</span>
<span class=”c_brand”>Grail</span>
<span class=”c_color”>Black</span>
<div class=”c_category” style=”display:none”>Tees</div>
<span class=”c_price”>$110.00</span>
<div class=”c_markdown_status” style=”display:none”>New arrival</div>
With the convention in place, all manners of developers could create sites and/or apps that would actually help customers find the killer deal (rather than just aggregate a bunch of crap.)
Maybe there should be a microformat. hCommerce? Tantek?