Widgets are our way of helping Consumers create Demand while visiting our Business Partners’ web sites and prompt Consumers for the following information:

• What
• Where
• When
• Who

AnotherSocialEconomy will take care of the How by publishing that information to registered Retailers who can Supply the goods and/or services. There’s really no specific order to those W’s, so Business Partners can determine what’s best for their needs.

What

Hard Goods Widget Mock-up

In the hard goods mock-up, we’re prompting for Manufacturer, Model and any additional details you may want to specify.  For example, a Sony BluRay DVD Player The whole point is that Consumers use the Widget when they know exactly what they want and are prepared to buy it within a given time frame – the When.

Women's Shoes Widget Mock-up

A soft goods example could be for women’s shoes. So we simply changed the prompts from Manufacturer to Designer, from Model to Style and Details to Size and Width. We could still prompt for Details but we want Consumers to be as specific as possible in order to narrow down which Retailers we publish their Demand to.  It also helps narrow down the Proposals Consumers will receive.

We have other attributes – like quantity, which either can be defaulted to one, or, defaulted to one and hidden from the Consumer.

But we can go even further and create widgets for movie, or, car rentals. Just provide us with the prompts. So in the case of movies, maybe all you need to define What is Title and BluRay, or, DVD. For car rentals, maybe all you need is Car Type. How about golf, or, restaurant reservations? We can do that too. See ezToff for example.

Where

Where Widget Mock-up

There’s a few things we could do with Where. For starters, we could leave it exactly as you see in the mock-up for those cases where Business Partners don’t necessarily know where the Consumers are coming from. For example, a Referrer may have the Widget on their blog where a potential Consumer is reading their opinion of the latest 3D High Definition TVs. Since the Referrer doesn’t know the reader’s location, nor, do they know any local Home Theater shops, the widget should prompt the Consumer for Locale (postal code and country) and Range (the distance willing to travel to make purchase).

On the other hand, if the widget was placed on a Retailer’s web site, then we could default those values based on the Retailers location. And to go one step further, we could always default the location and simply hide/skip the page.

When

When Widget Mock-up

As was the case with many of the prompts, we could simply default these but, Consumers may want to indicate when they need the good/service by and optionally, when that need Expires. Once the Consumer’s request, or, Demand expires, any new local Retailers will not be notified. Furthermore, all Retailers already notified of the Demand, will no longer be able to Propose anything.

Who

Who Widget Mock-up

Now the whole point of the Widget is to provide alaunching point to the AnotherSocialEconomy service.  The objective here is that Consumers simply send their request and go on with their lives. There’s no need to come back to Widget’s site to check up on things. AnotherSocialEconomy will now, via email, confirm Consumers’ requests and forward any relevant Proposals. The important thing for all Consumers and Retailers to appreciate is the service is completely anonymous. Neither Consumer, nor Retailer, ever know the other’s contact information. The only piece of shared information is the Confirmation number provided when a Consumer Confirms a Retailer’s Proposal.

And that’s how we start the process

Thanks Widget Mock-up

At this point, AnotherSocialEconomy sends an email confirming the Consumer’s request (Demand) and publishes the Demand to all registered Retailers. Only those with inventory on hand, or, in a position to supply the services need reply. For the Retailers, it’s like screen calls (emails) for only serious buyers. If they wish, they click a link in the email and launch a web console for them to Propose their goods and/or services.

The Consumer then receives an email from AnotherSocialEconomy with Proposal and, if so desires, clicks a link to email their Confirmation.  The Retailer is then ask to hold onto the goods, or, reservation and a Confirmation number is provided to both parties. Finally, once the Consumer and Retailer meet up, they conclude their transaction and Close their respective Demand and Proposal.