How to benefit from being the dealer?

When the website provides only info, but can not participate in transaction

[dangerx]

Hello,

Lets say there will be a website about Widgets (so much beloved here:) It provides all information, comparisons and reviews of those Widgets. People will be happy to find all the info related these Widgets.

However, Widgets are too costly to be bought online and they require additional service/certified instalations. Obviously only the local companies which have an experience/expertise can setup these Widgets for a clients. Therefore, unfortunately customers buy the Widgets not from the website but from the local companies.

So, the question is how would it be possible to benefit for a website in this case? The only possibility I see would be selling an advertisment space, but maybe there are some other clever ways to intercept the transaction between the customer and local dealer, or between the local dealer and the manufacturer?
BTW, Widgets are rare/expensive so no affiliates are usually offered:(

I would appreciate all your ideas very much,
Thanks,
Al.

[LifeinAsia]

If you are an authority site on widgets, then you can have visitors signup to be contacted by a widget seller near them. You then sell those leads to widget dealers.

(Actually, you would first signup a bunch of widget dealers from around the country. Then when visitors fill out the online form, the lead would imemdiately go to their nearby widget dealer.)

Think of it as almost offline pay-per-click advertising.

[dangerx]

Hi,

Thanks for comments, I got the point, it is simple and nice idea to "sell the customer"! :))

What do you specifically mean by the "offline PPC"?

[LifeinAsia]

With online PPC, when a visitor clicks on a banner ad or pai dtext link, he is immediately redirected to the advertisers site.

With "offline" PPC, the lead is sent to eh advertiser, who later contacts the visitor. Not so instantaneous.