Co-Buying: The Infographic

Somebody is going to take a look at this video and make millions. It’s a scene from a Chinese ‘Tuángòu‘ (team-buying) raid on a paint retailer. The concept is super-simple – a flash mob of shoppers descend on some poor retailer and demand a bulk discount. Would you stand up to the wild team-buying leader in this video???

The social commerce opportunity is to harness the energy, spontaneity of ‘Tuángòu‘ team-buying and apply it to e-commerce, or at least digitally-enhanced commerce. Of course, online collective bargaining for shopping has a name – or had a name until the term ‘group-buying’ was reduced to a marketing wheeze from daily deal sites Groupon et al.

So here’s the concept rebranded as ‘co-buying’ and summed up an a clear and articulate infographic from smart UK start-up BuyaPowa (and supporting video). We’re big fans of this Tuángòu concept, and think collective price bargaining has a big future in social commerce – particularly in corporate purchasing departments.

Someone will make a killing out of this Chinese Tuangou concept when they get it right – what do you think?