The British start-up Raffle.it demonstrates how products can be raffled off in a playful way instead of being auctioned. A substantial disadvantage of raffling however, is that significantly more participants/players are required in order to close transactions.
The list of running and finished draws shows the type of products which suit the concept. The fundamental principles of Raffle.it are reminiscent of Yieeha (German site) and is definitely a good source for inspiration. While users of Yieeha play with “Yodds” (virtual tokens), Raffle.it uses real money in small amounts as customary with regular raffles.
Pascal Finette follows the train of thought further ("Raffle.it brings a new twist to social commerce"):
"The moment they open up their system for everybody (at the moment the raffles are hand-selected and often come from companies), it will be possible to raffle away pretty much anything. Which could prove to be a pretty smart business model for expensive, rare items.
Want to sell your Porsche? Why not set up a raffle where the total amount of sold tickets represent your desired price and your buyers each have a chance to get the car for only a few pounds.
If you now combine this system with some smart marketing in the background - inject some vouchers, product samples and so on for those who didn’t win - and you’ll have a nice, round business model. It will be interesting to see in which direction Raffle.it will develop itself - there are definitely some distinct (and rather different) routes the company can take."
Compared with sites like Luupo (German site) Raffle.it manages to make the user think about the fun instead of the fees. The down side unfortunately, is that it takes a long time to sell out an entire raffle ticket contingent. Luupo is much faster.
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.
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