Dell Swarming in Canada

On the heels of Singapore success, Dell are rolling out their ‘Group Buy’ (collaborative purchasing) social shopping experiment Dell Swarm in Canada – and extending it with some smart features.

The basic idea is simple, group buying, club together with people who want to buy the same Dell computer as you and get a discount. The more people who buy, the bigger the discount.

Collaborative purchasing, or group buying certainly isn’t new, but Dell have added a few interesting features, such as tight(ish) integration with Facebook and Twitter to bring in more buyers, allowing customers to name their own price (the lower the price, the higher number of buyers needed), allowing buyers to vote for configurations open for group buying, and allowing individuals to group buy a base model and then personalise it.

Dell is being smart here – learning as it goes – testing first in Singapore, tweaking features, then launching in Canada. The URLs have changed from national to .com/ca .com/sg, so expect progressive rollout if it boosts sales. However, the real proof of the pudding will be when Dell folds this social commerce feature into it’s main e-commerce site.