Group buying

In the last couple of years, an interesting trend emerged in China called "Tuangou" (团购), which translates as group purchasing. Essentially, this is the act of online users organizing themselves as groups and then going to offline retailers to negotiate wholesale discounts for multiple purchases of the same items. Goods often group bought include furniture, electronics and even jewelry. Examples of such sites include shTuanGou and KDS According to CiC Data's Sam Flemming, we're now seeing a trend in which the retailers are actually partnering with these sites to sponsor such group purchasing events. It will be interesting to see how this develops - likely it will be a good way for large retailers to get rid of their old stock. Visit the SeeiSee blog to read more »