Robert Ambrogi Blog
A new “reverse auction” Web site, Tip-Mart, enables purchasers of legal services to accept bids from interested lawyers and law firms. Here is its pitch:
“In Tip-Mart’s reverse auction, buyers no longer are required to search through and evaluate thousands of potential sellers to locate legal services. Instead, buyers merely post unlimited free reverse auctioned-classifieds … for a particular good or service. The burden is then shifted to interested sellers to competitively bid among other interested sellers to provide the good or service to the buyer. The buyer is then able to conveniently and easily evaluate various offers based on reputation, price, quality, users’ feedback-ratings, or other terms and then accept the best offer. Thus, the system eliminates extraordinary market inefficiencies, drives down prices, increases sales, and provides new value to both buyers and sellers.”
The site is set up to handle auctions for any number of goods or services, not just legal services. I found only one auction — for an IP attorney for Tip-Mart.
The site is the creation of a college student in Ohio, who concedes it “is still a lot of work in progress.”