Those who know me probably know that I'm a fan of marketing, new technologies and staying connected with people. I enjoy the group dynamic, although I AM an only child and just fine doing things by myself. Well, here's an interesting "new" concept which has hit the DC area now with a site called "BuyWithMe.com". Since we are participating, and I really like the site design and concept, I figured why not take a few minutes and tell my readers about the concept.
In a nutshell, group buying involves connecting merchants with customers over a very aggressively priced deal. Nothing new there? The great element here is basically a no risk element for the merchant..allow me to explain. Let's say the merchant is say..hmm.. a restaurant! and let's just say the Chef gives these great, fun and hands on cooking classes? But, he wants to maintain a certain class size and with all the menu design and elements that go into planning one of these, he doesn't want to do it for only 4 people, just not cost effective! So a website like www.buywithme.com comes in and negotiates a deal. "How about I bring you 20 people to do this class, would you drop the price a bit?" Intelligent and dashingly handsome Chef says.."Hmm, ok..let's cut my regular price by 44% and if you can get me 20, I'm happy!" Both sides walk away, put the deal up on the site, and see what happens.
Customer of www.buywithme.com signs up as a free user, she loves good deals, and she loves when someone else can negotiate a deal on a product or service she likes, and she gets the deal! What else could be better? So one day she's perusing the local deals in DC, and she sees said cooking class and says "Sure! why not?? I love their food, and the Chef is so knowledgeable!! I'm in!" She signs up, puts in her credit card info, and she's done. If at least 20 people sign up for that deal like she did, it goes off, her credit card is charged, she gets a PDF in her email, and she's excited about going to the class! But, let's say only 10 sign up, the class is not big enough, the deal does not close (way short of 20 people) and her credit card never gets touched, the deal is off, and we move on.
I hope my selfishly created story provides a clear example of how this concept work. Deals are crafted, minimum participation levels are created, and if they are reached, everyone who signed up gets the deal. If NOT, the deal is off, all people who signed up are off the hook, and other deals come around. There are more and more of these companies popping up. Giving my feedback on BuyWithMe.com I have been happy so far, the site design is VERY CLEAN and very simple to negotiate. I hope to do business with them into the future, and I'd recommend so far, because the deal only costs me something if it goes through. If it does, they cut me a check within one week for the people who signed up that pay the site directly.
Following the post is a new clip that ran today from the company covering the concept, keep an eye out for Visions at about 2 minutes. Keep tuned for a follow up blog post, thanks for reading, hope to see you at Visions!
