Group Buying: Beneficial or not?
Group buying is a popular means of buying several products together to reduce the total price of the purchase. This shopping strategy is under the circumstances where there should be a minimum number of purchasers who are willing to buy the same product.
China is known as the origin of group buying. It’s a country where collective buying is popular. They used to buy in teams to achieve discounts on their purchased product. Relatives, friends and strangers often connect over the internet to talk about the product that they want to purchase. Once they agreed on the same item, they now talk to the seller and bargain to have a price cut on the product.
Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder started up Mercata. It is an e-commerce website that offers electronic deals to online shoppers. The products they sell are high-end meaning that they offer high quality products that are also quite expensive buy with the involvement of group buying. Online shoppers would sign-up together to buy the same product. Since more people sign-up to buy, the price decreases. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of other online website, it was closed.
Group buying these days
With the emergence of technology these days, internet and social media were created. The websites can also be accessed with the use of the internet. It played a big role in the online shopping field. They set up rules, policies and minimum number of purchasers for a product on a daily basis. Many of these online sites have made negotiations with their respective suppliers, retailers and merchants.
Discount websites tempts its subscribers by offering discounts. Since these websites are visited online, payments are also made online so the subscribers just need to wait. The website waits for a minimum number of subscribers to sign-up for the offer then confirms the deals. The vouchers will also be sent on their inboxes. Retailer and shops often partners with discount websites to lessen their cost. Thousands of discount websites are available all around the world.