Will The Group Buying Model Work In South Africa?

On October 27, 2010 · 26 Comments · In Web

Group Buying, or Tuangou, is a relatively new buying and marketing strategy originally from China. Offline, Tuangou usually involves several people who approach a vendor of a specific product in order to bargain as a group to get discounts. The entire group then agrees to purchase the same item and benefits by paying less. The business benefits by selling multiple items at once.

The global trend at the moment is providing the same concept online by linking up strangers interested in purchasing the same product/service to (usually) small local businesses who provide the product to each member of that group at a drastically discounted rate. The group buying service is usually a localised service in order to provide deals to locals of their target city/community and the process usually works in the following way:

Want today’s deal? Just click “Buy” before the sale expires. If the minimum number of people sign up for the offer by the time it ends, you’ll get a printable certificate in your inbox the next day you can use whenever you like. If not enough people join, no one gets the deal and you don’t get charged a cent.

Mashable’s Pete Cashmore wrote an interesting article for CNN in which he outlines the trend at the beginning of 2010. The trend has continued throughout 2010 with dozens of websites springing up following the hugely successful Groupon. This trend has also made it to South Africa with some local group buying websites who are already offering group buying deals (see below).

I personally believe this strategy provides a unique and inspired way for small businesses to market themselves and gain new customers. Do you believe this model will work in South Africa?

The two biggest Group Buying services in South Africa currently are WiCount and Twangoo. WiCount is currently only offering deals in Joburg, but Cape Town and Durban offerings are planned (Score! Use the following promo code on WiCount to get 20% off your first purchase: Mathew-gs). Twangoo covers Cape Town as well as Joburg, with plans to offer deals in most major South African cities. Justhenga and EishCoupon are two other group buying services in South Africa. Twangoo, however, definitely is my service of choice and I’ve already purchased a few of their incredible deals.

Check out the Twangoo video after the jump for an explanation of the service:

UPDATE:

Another South African tuangou service has hit the web: UbuntuDeal

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  • William

    The Best group buying site in South Africa that I have used is eishcoupon.com

  • Casey

    Let’s hope they work, they’re great for discounts! Love the look and feel of Twangoo’s site. Looks like they’re targeting a higher-end clientele.

  • Robert Lauby

    i like Twangoo a lot, they have a great customer service (i called them at 10pm and they answered and solved my issue with a purchase.

  • Derrylg

    I really like twangoo.co.za they have some awesome offers on high end restaurants and spa’s, I bought a great spa treatment the other day for Camelot Spa in Cape Town for over 50% less!

  • Lguasco

    Twangoo is definitely top of the list when it comes to group buying in South Africa, with regular deals with everything from spas, restaurants, sporting activities, entertainment etc it caters for all. The deals are also so worthwhile with up to 50% discount off some offers. The service is also extremely efficient – definitely my company of choice.

  • miles

    A forthcoming market player that is exclusively catering to South Africa is Skoop – http://www.skoop.co.za

  • Michaelngarachu

    This is wonderful,i know of an upcoming site that seeks to revolutionalize group buying.

  • John

    I just had a terrible experience with Twangoo – certainly wont be going there again.

  • Tom

    Wicount were the first guys to launch and have featured the best deals so far. They also definitely have the best customer service!

  • http://matthewdavid.info/ Matthew Dekenah

    May I ask what happened with Twangoo?

  • LionelJed58

    Watch this space

  • wayneg

    I use only two group buying sites (www.ubuntudeal.co.za and http://www.wicount.co.za), and it really rocks, but I’ll never use Twangoo. I signed up and bought a spa deal there, but then many of my friends were telling me how they were spammed by them – they’d gotten emails and never signed up. I did a check and also found them here, number 48: http://www.ispa.org.za/spam/hall-of-shame.

    Once you spam me or my buddies, even if you’re Google, you’re a goner.

  • Kobus Barnard

    Ha ha, the manager at Twangoo has the same name as you. Self promotion… :)

  • Robert L

    Not sure if you guys are keeping tabs, but http://www.dealio.co.za has hit the scene. Things I like: no deals under 40% off, clean site, payment processing done offsite by PayFast which protects my credit card, oh, and they accept EFT payments which are tracked instantly – no waiting for clearance! Things I don’t like: they’re only in Cape Town, and I’m back in Jhb in a months time:(

  • Superdooper

    hey robert, how long have you been working for dealio?

  • Anonymous

    ROFL – I love it when the shilling gets busted:) Although, truth be told, I phoned the number on their site and asked to speak to Robert on Friday. No Robert working there…they don’t even have someone whose surname starts with the letter L (as far as the receptionist could see). Try it for yourself. Was kinda surprised and a little disappointed – guess he must genuinely be a fan. Meh. Sadpandaface.

  • donald

    damn robert/fluffypony – you are really persistant :-) ..changing names and evening following up..wow..
    its no shame. really. it is ok signing up as someone else and trying to compliment your own website. everyone does it, but all i’m saying is that you should be less obvious. :-) lol

  • Anonymous

    Thanks, Donald, but I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark a little. I won’t get into a discussion about the ethical value in shameless self promotion, but I work for an FMCG – if you want to phone me off list to verify this, drop me a mail and I’ll give you my number: mail at fluffypony dot co dot za. I’ve never integrated Disqus, but I think the site owner would be able to verify that the posts came from different sources as well. And my name is NOT Robert.

  • Chris

    Try http://www.bangoo.co.za

    nice deals in pretoria..

  • Franky

    I only saw this post now and I wanted to laugh! Twangoo’s site is hideous. Sorry, it’s the one thing I don’t like about their service. Higher-end? Not really. I personally think Groupon has a nice clean site, as do Ubuntu and Skoop. The rest are pretty tacky.

  • capi

    what about U.C.IT. ? 

  • capi

    what do you like about U.C.IT’s model on group buying?? 

  • http://www.groupbuying.co.za Ben

    Hey folks, http://www.GroupBuying.co.za has opened again, offering a forum and information on the group buying industry.

  • Justin

    We’ve just launched a South African daily deal aggregator called DealScout.   It fetches the deals from the top group buying websites and then allows you to filter it according to your criteria, so you can find the deals that best suit you!   It has a number of features including filtering options, daily emails and a .mobi site.   Check it out: http://www.dealscout.co.za/

  • http://phonerotica.cc Phonerotica

    Great stuff, you hpleed me out so much!

  • http://www.dealafrica.co.za Stanlygermain

    Hi,
    Thanks for the cool post. If your looking for a really cool group buying aggregator website that shows all the daily
    deal     websites, then you got to try “Dealafric” (http:www.dealafrica.co.za)