Online users can get paid for just about everything these days, from making accurate stock picks to referring others to an apartment complex. How about reporting good consumer deals? With auction sites, online resale retailers, and comparison tools, there are an infinite number of existing sites that aim to provide us the best deal. But a lot of these sites can end up being subjective, or have little involvement from the community.
BeatThat! is hoping to provide the most well-informed, self-sustaining consumer deal site by leaving things up to the consumer. If you find the lowest price deal on a particular electronics item, you can submit it to BeatThat! and earn cash. A good chunk of the process is maintained by users, from the research to the submissions, the verification and reporting. As a registered member, you can leave comments or report items listed that aren't the best deal. BeatThat! has rules, however, to prevent people from gaming the system.
For starters, there's a limit to how many submissions you can send in on a daily basis. There's also restrictions on the types of items listed on the site, as well as the online retailers that sell the items in the first place. You can't list used or refurbished items, and the "best deal" cost must include shipping and handling. And that's just a portion of the stipulations required for a submission. Is this process really lightening the workload for BeatThat!? It doesn't seem like it, especially as it has a set list of merchants that it's authorized for deal submissions on the sight, meaning its actual verification process is contained on the administrative end. Are the payouts merely an effort to gain users, then?