Powered by Blogger.

Group buying craze electrifies e-commerce in China

Like millions of Chinese, Liu Wen has fallen in love with group buying, which has electrified e-commerce in a country where getting the best possible discount is virtually a national pastime.

"My first experience was buying a beauty salon coupon. I just wanted to try it and it was great value," the 24-year-old children's chess teacher told AFP.

"Ever since, I've gotten in the habit of using it to buy meals every time I go to a restaurant," she said.

In group buying, websites offer goods or services at a special low price, but on the condition that a minimum number of customers get in on it.

Thanks to the Chinese zeal for a bargain and the country's huge Internet market -- its online users are estimated at more than 450 million -- practically anything can be bought or sold or here.

On the country's first site, lashou.com, buyers can purchase DVDs, sweets, beauty creams, hotel rooms, fruits and vegetables, basketball shoes, tablet computers, wedding portraits and a myriad of other offerings.

Each item shows how many buyers must commit for the "great offer" to become a reality. Sometimes all it takes is five or ten people.

For example, one hour of karaoke in Beijing, normally costing 60 yuan (about US$9), could drop to 20 yuan through a group-buying deal. Buyers receive a text message with a code and have one month to redeem it for their session.

In September, taobao.com -- China's answer to eBay -- launched its first group-buying offer with a batch of 205 ultra-compact Smart cars at a price of 135,000 yuan, nearly 25 percent off the regular price.

They sold out in just under three and a half hours.

Group buying has redefined the relationship between Chinese consumers who must work together to make the best deal happen.

For their part, group-buying sites canvas businesses and fiercely negotiate discounts.

A restaurant prefers to have 150 guaranteed diners for lunch -- even if they pay half the price -- over possibly only having 20 customers.

14:15 | |

This entry was posted on 14:15 You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Blogger Tips and TricksLatest Tips And TricksBlogger Tricks
1 Share/Bookmark

Labels

Blogger Tips and TricksLatest Tips And TricksBlogger Tricks