Chinese consumer power
ON a Friday afternoon in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, 500 shoppers gather outside a Gome electrical superstore in the downtown district. They arrive en masse at the designated time that they had previously agreed online. Several hours later, they emerge clutching boxes, having secured 10-30% discounts on cameras, DVD players and flat-screen televisions …
Team buying, aims to drive unprecedented bargains by combining the reach of the internet with the power of the mob. It is spreading through China like wildfire. The practice originated in online chat-rooms but has quickly inspired several specialist websites, such as www.teambuy.com.cn, www.taobao.com or www.liba.com
Would that work in Europe?
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Tags: Co-Buying, e-Commerce, shopping, users
May 7th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Don’t forget the Dutch Pingelpartner : http://www.pingelpartner.nl/
May 8th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Yes you’re right! Have you heard about any other similar concept around the world?
May 15th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
clust.com was about group buying but they changed their model and have been acquired by TopAchat.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! hielixdrego
June 7th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! yydcnvxbvzjan
March 24th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
well, after scrolling through various articles about the storry of letsbuyit.com I still did not get the idea why it went out of business in 2003? Was it just because of the discount law and earning losses thingy or because the business model of co-shopping does not really work?
March 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
well dia, there were several factors and one very important factor were the expenses, namely Advertising and HR, in correlation to the revenues. the former letsbuyit.com team had incurred an extravagant amount of expenses that never helps with the lack of income. The final crash was initiated by a rogue investor who promised money, which never came.
At the same time the concept was too early because back then people did not have the same sense for online communities, online orders, and even the patience to wait for the final purchase in comparison to the impulsive offline shopping. People are more used to the internet retail now.
And then there is one arguable reason, why letsbuyit.com vanished in 2001, which was the problem of co-buying in itself. People come together and push the price down however that required that people started bidding for a product when the price was still high but who wants to buy a product though the when the price is still high?
Many factors just came together with a little gossip and that’s how fast it goes.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Ok, so how about today when people are more used to the internet retail? Will it work today? e-commerce has become a “commodity” and there are many social websites that may enable co-shopping?
May 21st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
well there are many websites that are getting back into co-buying but i doubt that former technique will survive but rather more modern systems have a good chance. offline there definitely is a chance.
most importantly is that websites should not base their core on co-buying. one factor you must not forget is that through price comparison machines and globalisation the margins are shrinking significantly so there is not much so much space for negotiation anymore either.