poachit
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
PoachIt tracked product prices and coupon codes through a browser extension and mobile app, then alerted shoppers to discounts.
02 / poachit FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
PoachIt lived on a model retailers never supported: a free consumer price-tracking and coupon tool with no revenue path unless merchants cooperated with price feeds — and they would not. As one post-mortem voice put it, there is just no money in price tracking if retailers refuse to play ball on feeds. After raising $2.8 million, the company could not build a business around free alerts and shut the service in May 2015.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Price-tracking service closed
The founder announced that price tracking and deal reporting would end on 21 May 2015 and asked users to save their product information.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Price tracking + coupon browser extension
- 02
$2.8M raised; free consumer product
- 03
No money without retailer price feeds
- 04
Service closed May 2015