STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Have you ever shopped for clothes online and said to yourself, "Man, I wish this could be more like Priceline, where I could name my own price, but the selection is limited and the deals not all that great?" The Gap is here to help you achieve that dream, with their new "Gap My Price" site. It's as if Gap and Priceline got together and spawned a largely useless but mildly entertaining deal site that generates coupons you can't use online.

The premise is simple: items of women's clothing and their retail prices are displayed. You name a price. Gap either accepts that price or counters your offer with a higher one. If you accept the store's offer, you get a printable coupon for that item at that price at a brick-and-mortar Gap store.

It looks like the most you can save is about 50%, which is great if you're in the market for any of the ten or so specific items offered. But sometimes the bidding process is just confusing, as Jessica Wakeman of The Frisky noticed:

This U-neck stripe tee retails for $19.95 and I offered $16. Gap My Price came back with an offer of $19. Then I offered $18. Gap My Price then said the final offer was $19. So ... I could save a whopping 95 cents by clicking on their website a bunch of times?

It seems that you're punished for low-balling the site: I offered $3 for a t-shirt that lists for $19.95, and the site snapped back with an unimpressive offer of $19. When I offered $10 for the same item, it graciously countered with a more reasonable $11.

I might pick up that t-shirt for $11. But I'm more likely to wait for it to go on sale for an even lower price, then forget it ever existed if it doesn't. Which is how I usually shop.

Gap My Price [Gap]
Gap Introduces Gap My Price, A Puzzling New Name-Your-Own-Price Feature [The Frisky]