Priceline.com founder Jay Walker is moving into a new consumer-names-his-own-price venture online, this time selling groceries at a discount of up to 50%.
At the conference, Walker showed television and radio ads about to air in the New York metropolitan area. The ads feature William Shatner declaring jubilantly: "First airline tickets--now, groceries!" In the TV spots, the former Starship Enterprise captain demonstrates a visit to the Priceline site where he chooses the price of ketchup, French fries and other supermarket fare; prints out the results; and picks up his groceries at his local supermarket.
Walker's prediction, after showing the ads to the packed-to-the-rafters crowd: "If we can price soda and French fries...that probably tells you how dramatic the [Net] is going to be."
The grocery endeavor, Walker told an audience appearing rather stunned at the DM visionary's latest brainstorm, is a natural extension of the way groceries are priced now, with consumers paying different prices depending on whether they have a coupon or belong to a warehouse club, for example. For groceries, he said--as Priceline.com has proved with airline tickets--"price fixing is almost dead."
Because of the control the Internet affords the consumer, marketers will soon be grappling over "a choice between giving a better price or losing a customer."
As for the company's flagship venture, its doing just fine, thank you. Walker said Priceline sells 2% of all leisure airline tickets per day.
