How National Marketplaces work

A sample transaction:

"It’s lunchtime, I want a babysitter this afternoon, I’ve registered with the National Markets system. What do I do?"

1) Connect to the system, go to the childcare market, select "babysitting at my home". It now wants to know the times you have in mind:



2) Immediately the system displays the 15 local individuals showing they are available, contactable in time and that your job fits all their parameters. Sellers in childcare must have police and Education Authority clearance (at their expense), these bodies issue system compatible authentication codes as part of the deal with government. Sellers work their way up through grades assuming no complaints are upheld against them. The highest grade sellers are underwritten by the system. Higher grades are likely to command a price premium.

The rate at which each of them will do this particular job based on how far they would have to travel, how much notice they get, your track record and whatever else matters to that person has been worked out. If your job doesn't match a seller's willingness-to-work parameters they are excluded. Willing sellers are then displayed in price order within each grade.



3) The buyer can click for further information on any person on this screen



One benefit the National Markets have been granted by government is automated access into the judicial process. In case of a transaction going wrong the courts will take the case directly off the system (after automated statement taking from both sides). Normal court process is then followed, funded as court cases are currently. At the end the court directly inputs its judgment into the system. As with licences allowing us to drive on the state-backed road network, anyone persistently in breach of the rules that make the system safe for others will find themselves downgraded.

4) Tell the system you wish to book this sitter and a contract appears between the two of you for your online authentication. The text is standard, ensuring protection for both sides. You don’t need to read it.



Enter your password to accept this and the system will deduct the price from whatever account you allow it to access and hold it until 48 hours after the job is due to be completed. Assuming no complaint is filed in that time it will then release the money, minus its own fractional commission to the sitter’s account.


Monitoring the seller:

Across town the sitter, who has specifically said she is available for work this afternoon and will take local jobs on short notice gets SMS or other notification of her assignment. If she doesn’t confirm in the time allowed the system will re-assign the job, picking up the difference in price, and put a black mark on her record. National Markets don’t force anyone to do anything but they do check that both sides of a deal do what they said they would.


Market information for all:

The reason the sitter just booked was available for short notice childcare in her area today might be that she had looked at her local information page a few days earlier and noticed that this kind of assignment was her most lucrative opportunity for the time being.




Speed of transactions:

Booking the sitter above would take seconds and require minimal mindshare. Sellers have to meet all legal qualifications to enter the market, if you’re willing to pay the premium demanded by upper grade sellers you would know you were getting someone with a long track record of successful sitting in multiple households behind them with every incentive to maintain that record for your booking.

Transaction costs for this purchase were next to nothing. Costs involved in market research, marketing, taking of bookings, shopping around, vetting, invoicing and debt collection currently associated with these low level trades are history for system users. You know you’re paying a market rate because this highly efficient market is completely transparent to anyone who might be tempted into childcare in your area.


The above has been just one, very simple, transaction within a National Markets system.


Escalating regulation:

Not sure you'd ever buy a babysitter online? To give you confidence operators may have a rule that to even get into the bottom rung of this market sitters not only have to clear all legal hurdles but must also have done 500 hours for minimum 20 families without problems in the Parents' Help market. That's where they help with child related tasks but a parent must stay in the house.

Doubts remain? You should be purchasing in the upper grades. Those sitters have thousands of hours of bookings for multiple households behind them. They could include moonlighting teachers and paediatric nurses, any of whom you'd leave your children in the care of without a thought in another environment. All of them have a long audit trail of bookings and ongoing verification that can be opened the minute a problem were to occur.

What if you could confine your search to sitters who had (a) worked for you in the past (b) been booked for your children's friends (c) been vetted specifically, at their own expense, by your kids' school?

We're using childcare as an example because it is the most sensitive market conceivable. It would be facile to claim there would never be a problem. But NEMs could be made the safest way to buy childcare that has ever existed. This is a market with escalating regulation, those at the top of the market are very heavily regulated and have been subject to endless checking not least by dozens of parents. Not all sellers will endure this kind of regulation, those that will can command a price premium from nervy buyers.

Still reluctant? Don't worry, NEMs has far less sensitive sectors. Just use it for your haircuts, gardening requirements, car valeting, sports-facility hire or someone to come and do your ironing in the next hour. Similar protection for both parties is working behind all NEMs' markets.





© Guaranteed Markets Ltd (UK) 2005. Some of the technology disclosed is patent pending. "NEMs" and the chained faces logo are trademarks used with permission. All rights reserved.