Back in late 90s, some startups offer such business model of buying together completely online. There are still sites like storemob to allow local shoppers find each other via message board and get a discount price by shopping together. However, how to do this completely online is still a challenge. Somehow it does not work well though it looks like a perfectly model to be implemented on the Web. Think about it, all this model needs is group sufficient number of people together, the Web provide an unprecedented opportunity for this, now people living in different places could buy together! It is easier to find enough people compared with one can only find via local resident or circle of friends. So why there are no good website for this?
There are several possibilities that prevent such site from popular.
First, it needs a higher threshold of critical mass. For an online retailer like Amazon.com or auction site like eBay.com, users use them frequently and immediately. More important, they can easily find what they want. However, for a team buy site, even one can list a whole catalog of every product, finding enough team members to buy the same product takes a long time. How long? It is hard to see. So the success rate of buying a product with discount price was largely offset by the risk of could not find enough buyers -- in other words, wasteful waiting.
Second, the savings has to be large to justify the efforts. People will take the effort to find others and get a discount price for a piano but few will do that for a $15 pencil sharpener. The popularity of eBay and Amazon comes from the small priced items, not pianos. Such selectivity on products prevent team buy sites from popular.
There are also other challenges like coordinating the delivery though online retailers could do that (drop-shipper).
A pure team buy service might not pull up but this concept could be blended into innovative Web shopping models.
Recently, the so-called social commerce became a trend. Sites like jellyfish.com are popular among certain online shopping groups. Jellyfish is a combination of comparison-shopping, cash back rebate, and reverse auction.
On top of all these, a feature make it distinct from ordinary shopping sites, is the social elements -- it allows shoppers to see each other and know each other. Shoppers could create their profile page within jellyfish. They could also see and chat with each other in reverse auction (the smack shopping). The reverse auction is running like a TV station, a schedule for product categories in auction was released for reference. during each day, products in different categories will be auctioned at different time slots.
This site is addictive. Some users claimed that they are there all the time except working and sleeping. Will this, together with Woot.com, be a new trend?
