The New York Times “Bits Blog,” one of their many attempts to sell out to people who don’t read newspapers, ran a story this week about a new Web venture called Shangby. The company is based in both Austin, Texas and Shanghai, and it offers luxury items sold in America at a fifth of the American price. Besides being a classic case of a site that had to settle for the second best URL (”Shangbuy” being optimal), this model sounds like a great idea. According to the Bits Blog:

Shangby’s Swedish tour guide, Nina, cruises the jewelry shops of Shanghai with a video crew, broadcasting live on the Internet. A “Shangbuyer”, who registered on the site and was picked by the company to lead a particular shopping excursion, directs Nina and the video crew to zoom in on particular items and haggle over prices with store owners. The videos are posted on the site (grist for Home Shopping Network-holics) and anything the Shangbuyer examines ends up listed on the site for other shoppers to purchase at that same price.

This is the future. You can have someone shop for you by video, in China much less, and you don’t lose the experience of bargaining with a Chinese store owner. It is hardly a secret here that items sold here in China are often found in trendy upscale American shops marked up about ten times the Chinese price. All you fine female Flumesday readers who like fine things, like Flumesday, give this site a whirl. You might find something pretty.

•NYT: Shopping in Shanghai, From Your PC at Home
•Shangby.com

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