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57 Comments
- captaindan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+281975, eh? Was that during a pay-per-view seance? Adam Smith died in 1790.
- wush, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24I'm going to try it next time I get Chinese take-away. Wish me luck.
- ProTrader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Bargaining is great in China. Bargaining takes a little getting used to if you're in China. I got ripped off a few times before I got used to counter-offering their list price with some crazy assed figure then standing my ground no matter what face the vendor pulled.
I found that pretending to walk away after I said some crazy price, almost always had the vendor running after me to finalise the sale. Shopping id fun there - it's like you're playing a game when your bargaining. - xptical, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14A few years ago, some friends of mine bought 20 BMWs at once. Got an awesome price on them for doing it that way.
They negotiated with the dealers to get rid of 90% of the ***** you usually get ***** with. No undercoating. No paying $200 for a wash, wax, and a tank of gas. No stupid financing either; they all paid cash. Well, not like bags of cash, but cachiers' checks. Same thing, really. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9flash mob use to be a thing (not sure if it still exists or is as big) where people, connected through a website, would get an announcement to meet at some place or landmark, then the people who get it would text it to their friends, and their friends, etc. etc. The product of all this would be a huge mob of people that would simultaneously show up somewhere...
...the fun part was that the announcement also would include some sort of signal to let them know when to leave... such as a person in a flamingo suit walking by or someone with a sign or poster or shouting something...
It was all pretty clever, but, like I said, I'm not sure if its as big as it was or even existant. - gregmo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8There was an edition published in 1976 but he wrote wealth of nations 2 centuries before that
- admirabumblebee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9They've been doing it in the audio community for a few years now. They're called 'group buys' in that scene.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8DIGG MOB! I say we get those 2405's down to a reasonable $400 or less (USD)
- Quash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I think when they said they saved 10%, they meant 10% off the lowest-found sales price, not the sticker price. Remember, there is a greater acceptance of slimmer margins in many bargaining cultures.
Why? A nice South Asian friend explained it to me, once. He said, in North America, when you bargain, the sales person thinks they're *losing* money when they go below the sticker price. Amongst some other cultures, they feel, instead, like they're still making a *profit* above the wholesale price. So, there's not a personal feeling of loss tied up with it. People don't like to feel personally defeated in a negotiation, which is more likely to happen if you feel you're losing money with every 1% knocked off the sticker price. When it gets personal, people are more likely to dig in their heels and the deal won't be made.
He said this was also the reason that when negotiating at a car dealership, you stay away from the north american born sales guys and go to the foreign-born sales guys from certain cultures. They don't feel like they're losing as they deal with you and that you're taking away something from them.
Plus, they're more comfortable with the culture of bargaining in a way we're not raised to be in North America, so it's less likely to become personal and everyone feels they've won in the end.
You feel you've gotten something below the sticker price. They feel they've gotten something above the wholesale price. No one feels like they got screwed or that they screwed anyone. - gmerin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5but 2 hours just to get 10% off? maybe if there's absolutely no competition in the city, but even then only maybe. for 2 hours and 15 sales worth of haggling I would expect at least 20% off list - the MSRP retail markup is so high that even a 20% reduction leaves about 27% for the store. I suspect this is a relatively unique occurrence in a relatively unique culture - other countries that have had capitalistic marketplaces for a few generations already have factored the group discount concept into their local economy (eg. COSTCO, SAM's Club, etc.)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Haha great article. My favorite part:
"Bargaining is a way of life in China. Shoppers treat sticker prices as a starting point for negotiations, and it's a point of pride to strike a tough bargain or walk away if unhappy."
Lol, oh really? That would explain just about every swap-meet I've ever been to. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Team Buying > Team Fortress
- oblivinated, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Haha, you can't bargain for food in China... and you'll probably get kicked out of Panda Express in the States.
- Nick_Circosta, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5wow, china just doing this now? us italians have been doing this for centurys
- jjjjjjb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The article makes it sound like a lot like bulkbuyer.com.au except with people actually going into the store.
I imagine for staff who have to meet their weekly targets etc. in department stores, it would be pretty hard to knock back a group of 20 people all of whom want to buy product. - Toast1185, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It sounds like a great idea, but the savings are exaggerated. The article says they saved 10% by arguing, but it took them 2 hours to do it. If this was a $300 TV that ends up having them 'worked off' $15 dollars an hour, which is alright, but through in opp. cost and the regular price for their time and the savings become less pronounced. Also, I really don't think this would fly in most U.S. stores
- levinet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Team buys are great, we do a lot of it over at overclockers.com.au on online purchases.
- econojon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nash Equilibrium anyone?
- phobs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2same with the car scene, group buys are very common for performance car parts. Sometimes the vendors even come to community websites to promote group buys.
- Enitime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, I used letsbuyit a couple of times as well.
Like so many other dotcoms in the 90s, they offered free delivery. And it pretty much killed 'em. - subscriber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's not evil. If the seller doesn't want to sell at the negotiated price, he doesn't have to. If he agrees to sell, then it's his choice. He may in fact feel the he has won out due to the volume of the sale. He would be wise to avoid selling at a loss, though.
- subscriber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"...greater acceptance of slimmer margins in many bargaining cultures."
We have a different form of bargaining here, it's called "bargain hunting". We wait until we see the item we want on sale (below sticker price), then we strike. Sometimes a digg user will post a link on digg to a remarkably low sale price, which may have the same "flash mob" effect talked about.
The objective of every seller is to get the highest price for his goods, and the objective of every rational buyer is to get the lowest price. Bargaining is but one way to achieve this. "Price selection", through targeted sales or special discounts is another. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I know most company's I deal with call this networking
- jbus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This sounds kind of like a mobile version of Woot... Target one item with a lot of buyers and get a good discount. This is a pretty cool idea, especially if it works.
I don't see this working in the U.S. though. - ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2groupofone - 1976 and 1796 isn't that hard to mix up and it's close.
- kyriakos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1there was the same kind of thing in the UK 3-4 years ago. cahoot something can't remember the name. it never caught on.
- Jazzed, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3>Hmmm... considering I wrote that comment blacked out drunk after coming home from the bars on friday night it is possible that i transposed some numbers in the date.
So try not to use your computer when drunk? - LtCarter47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's an interesting idea. I could totally see this being a great new adition to craigslist...
- groupofone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11776 ... 1975 ... even drunk that's hard to fat finger. Eh, only off by 200 years.
- schurkenstadt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We had a team buying hype in Germany during the dot-com boom. The thing never really got of and companies all went bankrupt shortly after.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, it's better to buy in bulk. Would be like a group of people in the US organizing for a run to Costco and splitting the goods. But all this is doing is attempting to cut out the middle man.
- qingshuo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hello there econ major =)
Makes me wonder, since each buyer faces a probability of the buy failing (since they must decline collectively), which requires him to join another mob, leading to more mobs over time, and less bargaining power... - honkyman5000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For some reason they don't take into account how much their time is worth.
- ngageguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny, this was just removed from the front page after I commented. oh well.
- scheper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This used to be done in the UK and parts of Europe as well, on a site called weallgetthingscheaperwhenwebuyinagroup.com (I forgot the shorter url, but this one worked too), which was part of the dotcom bubble, which eventually burst for these guys too.
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd be down for 3 if you we could do that.
- ngageguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1On my recent trip there, my friend who lives there talked down almost everything we bought. I never really thought about it in a shop, but always do it at swap meets/yard sales. We saved an insane amount of money, he explained that if the sales person doesn't make a sale, it looks bad, whatever the profit loss. My wife got some bobbles in a shop at about 90% the list price. Sweeet.
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2There are alot of people in china, and america, where $15 an hour is alot of money for thier time, personally i value mine at $150, but thats because i like doing my own ***** from time to time so I price it just out of where people will take advantage and use my time
- phobs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Im pretty sure if you went to something like a Best Buy and said I want 15 of item X they would give you a discount. When I was starting a business CompUSA bent over backwards to give me bulk deals. They were usually heavily discounted off the retail price. They even let me see their cost. Even when I was using McDonalds to feed about 40 people they gave a discount. Its not that far fetched to have this occur in the US.
- phobs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That would be pretty difficult considering the Internet hasn't been around for centuries....... Haggling is normal in Asian cultures, the point of the article is the Internet aspect.
- CoolWind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3"..with the stealth tactics of the flash mob.." - what the heck does that mean?
"By combining the power of the Internet to compare prices with the stealth tactics of the flash mob, team buyers are driving hard bargains in the world's hottest economy." - achantra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder if this would work at my local Best Buy... I've heard of people getting deals at chain stores by talking directly with the manager, especially if they're going to buy a few of the same items...hmmm
- yourescreened, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think the major difference between the US (or even UK) and China is that Chinese retail still has a predominance of 'small' non-chain stores. Salespeople have the ability to negotiate pricing (to a level) and if necessary can refer to the 'boss' directly for authorization of further discounts. I dont think the same can apply to Best Buy.
Having said that, I do think there is room to move here. Forums such as http://www.teambuyforums.com have sections for dealers to post their offers if they are interested in entertaining group purchases. The forums are dead but it does seem a good idea....Wholesalers are always interested to move merchandise, and they can still sell for HIGHER to a group of consumers than they do to Retail. If they do sell at the same price, at least they get cash in hand - digitalogic8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0www.teampowerbuy.com is attempting this concept in the us.
- yourescreened, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I never thought that guys like CompUSA or BestBuy would go for the discount. Now I'm even more suprised why this doesnt happen more often.
- damber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Reminds me of www.letsbuyit.com which started up over 7 years ago and did pure co-buying (though now they don't do so much co-buying as normal sales), so the concept isn't really new. But a good idea nonetheless - I purchased a top of the range Sony TV for just over half the retail price when they first started. The business model didn't work too well though, at least their implementation of it, as they went bust for a while before emerging as a sales/co-buying hybrid.
I would imagine there's quite a few other similar operations around the net local to most places if you're willing to spend a little time searching. - xotox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The whole idea of bargaining, or bargain hunting, seems absent from English culture. Probably because it's something only a prole or a foreigner would have to do.
- elhammond, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Deal? Or no deal? Open the case.
- levinet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Even better.
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