My 14th column in “Vijay Next” newspaper (Kannada) was about Group Buying in India. Main points were,

• The year 2010 has seen very good ecommerce activity in India. We saw one of the leading ecommerce companies, Makemytrip.com, got listed in the US stock exchange successfully.
• Bulk buying is nothing new. In Bangalore the rates in city market are cheaper because a lot more people buy from them. Retail users (families) get vegetables at almost whole sale rate.
• Group buying has become very popular in the US. Sites in India have been inspired by US major Groupon.com
• Group buying sites promote just one deal for each city every day. For e.g. if a Pizza costs Rs 200, it will be available for Rs 100 on their site provided a certain number of Pizzas are sold.
• The famous ones are Taggle.com, DealsAndYou.com, Mydala.com.
• There are sites that don’t insist on group buying but yet offer products at great discounts. One such site is snapdeal.com.
• At times you save 60% on MRP! What more do you want? And when you buy a product you don’t have to use it the very same day. For e.g. if you buy a coupon for a restaurant, you don’t have to go the very same day.
• You can save anywhere from 20-60% on some products.

Read more on Column: Ecommerce – save on group buying sites…