The More, the Merrier: The Power of Group-Buying Websites
谁的团购，谁的团？
If you’re one of the millions who have a Facebook account, you’ve likely noticed ads in the margins of your home page for group-buying discounts in your area, offering sweet deals on everything from restaurant meals to spa services to recreational activities to specialty chocolates. Gone are the days of clipping coupons from paper circulars1)—the next wave of penny pinching2) is happening online, and en masse3).
Chicago-based Groupon4), which grew from four hundred to more than four million subscribers between November 2008 and May 2010, according to USA Today, is the original group-buying site, but dozens of others—among them LivingSocial, Groop Swoop, and BuyWithMe—have quickly followed suit5). These sites typically start out offering deals only in the cities where they’re headquartered, but many have expanded rapidly: LivingSocial, for example, launched in twenty-five new U.S. locales on September 16, 2010; the company’s services are now available in many markets in three countries.
The basic business model is as follows: Each group-buying site offers consumers a wide variety of discounts in their particular geographical area. People who sign up for daily notifications from these sites then secure their loot6) through a number of different incentive programs: some sites won’t make these deals live until a minimum number of consumers request that particular coupon; others provide additional discounts, or even free goods, for users who persuade a specific number of their friends to buy the products as well.
The sites divvy7) up the profits with the businesses they partner with, and those merchants often experience noticeable—sometimes even staggering8)—revenue increases. On August 20, 2010, for example, the Chicago Tribune reported that in Groupon’s first-ever nationwide promotion, in which the company offered $50 worth of Gap9) merchandise for $25, the site sold 445,000 vouchers10) for the clothing megaretailer, an endeavor that garnered a whopping $11 million haul11).
团购公司并不仅限于在其网站主页上发布每天的折扣通知，他们还利用其他渠道来散播其商品信息，造势之猛如烈火燎原，这些渠道包括仿佛拥有无穷魔力的社交媒体平台——主要是Facebook和Twitter——和消费者的个人电子邮件账户。就拿LivingSocial来说吧，它原本就是做社交媒体应用编程的，所以天生就适合采取这一策略。马斯说：“社交媒体是我们核心策略的一部分，因此我们很清楚那些平台的影响力所在，也懂得如何利用它们为消费者创造快乐。”诸如“Facebook Connect”和Twitter的“Sign in with Twitter”等功能则使得团购网站能够更为简便地进行每日交易宣传。
Group-buying companies don’t limit their daily discount postings to their sites’ home pages; rather, they tap into the seemingly boundless power of social-media outlets14), primarily Facebook and Twitter, as well as consumers’ personal email accounts, to propagate15) their products like wildfire. LivingSocial, for one, has its roots in building social-media apps16), so this tactic is a natural fit; Maas says, “Social media is part of our core DNA, so we understand the power of those platforms and how to leverage them to make things fun for consumers.” Tools like Facebook Connect17) and Twitter’s “Sign in with Twitter18)” feature make publicizing daily deals from group-buying sites even simpler.
The benefits of the group-buying business model undeniably outweigh its disadvantages; after all, as Maas says, “it wouldn’t succeed if it didn’t work equally well for consumers and merchants.” Still, not every retailer that’s joined forces with a Groupon-type company has been happy with the results. On September 11, 2010, Jessie Burke, the owner of a Portland, Oregon–based coffee shop called Posies19) Cafe, published a woeful blog post about the difficulties she’s encountered since she made the “terrible decision” to partner with Groupon:
“Over the six months that the Groupon is valid,” Burke wrote, “we met many, many terrible Groupon customers … customers that didn’t follow the Groupon rules and used multiple Groupons for single transactions, and argued with you about it with disgusted looks on their faces.
“After three months of Groupons coming through the door, I started to see the results really hurting us financially. There came a time when we literally could not make payroll because at that point in time we had lost nearly $8,000 with our Groupon campaign.… So the experience jaded20) me, and the interactions with the few bad Groupon customers we had jaded our staff. After all of this, I find myself not even willing to buy Groupons because I know how it could hurt a business.”
Burke’s experience may not represent the majority of businesses’, but it’s not surprising. After all, the explosive proliferation of companies like Groupon belies21) the fact that their business model is still a fledgling22) one in the grand scheme of online consumerism, and that some chinks23) in their armor are therefore inevitable. As LivingSocial’s Maas explains, “It’s still really early—we’re experimenting with new things all the time, to deliver more deals close to where our consumers live and work.”
As with all successful e-commerce ventures, group-buying websites will likely go through several iterations24) before they finalize their features. But Groupon, LivingSocial, and their ilk are off to a running start, and that’s largely because they’re so well integrated with the markets they serve. In much the same way that social-media outlets both reconnect long-lost friends and introduce users pursuing common goals, group-coupon sites help reacquaint consumers with the cities where they live and play, as well as expose them to like-minded members of their communities whom they haven’t met yet. As the Internet continues to transcend geographical, social, and commercial boundaries, online shopping is increasingly for team players—but in this sport, no one has to sit on the bench.
