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Smart Mob in China for Retailer Discount
taweili writes "The Economist has a story about Tuangou in China. Tuangou, roughly translated into group purchasing, is basically a smart mob who arrange the meet up over the internet and show up at a retailer at a specific time and use their number to negotiate a discount with the retailer. In the story, a Tuangou group of 500 show up in Gomei (largest home electronic retailer in China) at 4pm on June 16th and negotiate a 10 ~ 30% discount for the group. Gomei not only closed the door to the normal customers but also prepared goody bags for these Tuangou shoppers. Now, that's Power to the People!"
No one here disagrees that Tuangou is really a good idea. But due to the way market works, if this trend catches on nationwide, soon there will be a slowly increase in prices, so that the discount they ask for will result in the current prices of today. Buying outside a Tuangou will become quite more expensive and impracticable.
Please, correct me if I am wrong.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
You already have a mob handy, so you just burn the shop down and loot what you wanted...
The People's Glorious Struggle Against the Opressive Running Dog Capitalists Bargain Barn offers 25% OFF to YOU AND EVERYBODY IN YOUR CADRE!!! So stop on by TODAY!!!
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So, this capitalist lackey and his bourgeoisie imperialist masters walk into this bar looking to oppress the proletariat, see, and there's a frog on this one guy's head, see? And the bartender says, "Hey...what the heck is THAT?!" And the frog replies, "Well, it started as a wart on my ass..."
--Comrade Henny Youngman
If you got a couple hundred people to go down to your local Best Buy, they'd probably call the cops. Even if they didn't, the iron-fisted corporate policies of most retailers would probably preclude getting any kind of deal.
Congratulations, you just discovered the difference between a free market and USA-style capitalism.
Where in the US do you pay "too much money for gas"?
This sounds more like a case of Chinese mass hysteria and a spin on a very common scam used by confidence tricksters and indeed marketers everwhere. Ok you are a retailer, you get someone skilled in the art to arange for 500 people to "flashmob" your store then you sell them loads of crap at the usual discount you give to everyone else - oh just be chance you have a few goody bags on hand. If I was ordering in quantities of 500 I would expect big discounts.
It works because people are happy to part with money when they see their peers doing likewise and they hate to pass up a bargain.
Trust the Economist to be taken in by it - but then they believed in that Enron really was a new business model based on the lightweight economy.
At a gas station! Duh!
Haida Manga
I've never understood the logic that says when people become happy consumers that FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY are right around the corner. If anything, our experience in the U.S. points to the opposite.
While democracy might give rise to capitalism, it doesn't follow that capitalism will give rise to democracy. The two are not equivalent.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Actually, I do this all the time.
One of my hobbies is 4X4 Trucks (old Ford Broncos specifically). It is not uncommon at all for us to put together a "group buy" on something. Some inspired indavidual will contact a vendor for some product; a winch, wiring harness, tires, wheels, shocks, etc. and propose a "group buy"
The vendor will give us a critical mass quantity (usually around 10 or so) and offer a substantial discount (10%-30%). There is usually an email storm that then insues as news of the deal is circulated. If the quantity and deadline are met, the vendor ships the product to the individuals that participated in the offering
Smaller scale than "hundreds" of people, but I have gotten some pretty sweet deals doing this.
Yes, it works in the U.S.