Of course

Customer:
?Can I join an existing group?

BusinessRep:
?Yes. But a group will be locked once it met the required number of
people.

BusinessRep:
?The website forms the group. It sends emails to a few in the group and
collects quotations from them. You may be one of them.

Customer:
?Why should I get the quotation? I thought, the site gets the quotation
from the vendors.

BusinessRep:
?This is a social networking site for bringing down the price through
group bargain.

Customer:
?Hmmm…

BusinessRep:
?The vendors can also provide quotations for an existing group. But the
site will encourage the customers more to represent their groups.

BusinessRep:
?You will bargain from your local stores only and your group members will
be from your city only.

Customer:?
Who will be the group members? Do I know them? It is very difficult for me to
get quotes for an unknown group.

???????????????
This was a piece of a conversation the business representative of a site that
works based on the principles of social ?networking for group bargaining
targeted towards volume discounts had with a customer in their chat page. This
customer looks to be frightened when he learns that he may be asked to get
quotations for an unknown group of people.

???????????????
Is it really that frightening to fetch quotations for a group which we won’t
know in person? The website is really a social networking site offering the
customers to get grouped. Instead of sending the entire group in person to the
stores for bargaining, it selectively asks a few from the group to play the
role of a group representative.

Of course,
the selected representative will be in a kind of forced-situation to trust the
website’s claim about the group size and their authenticity. How to get the
confidence and trust levels of the shoppers and make them fearless and willing
to be volunteering for a group shopping representative job? It is very obvious
that this shopping model will fail if it doesn’t build enough amounts of trust
and confidence. Here is a way to make this shopping experience less painful and
interesting.

No-No-No
solution for a Win-Win-Win situation

???????????????
Customers � Vendors � Website: This is the triangular force that makes the
shopping experience nice and reasonable and all the three players should be
made to trust each other in order to make the group bargains to be effective
and beneficial in a social networking scenario.

???????????????
More than the trust and confidence, they should be allowed to play their role
fair and free. Instead of making the system rigid, we can allow them to be lot
less coupled and allow succeeding only when the end results (quotations) are
beneficial to everyone in the equation: Customers, Vendors and the web
platform.

???????????????
Any player in this triangle shall not be made liable for any deviations from
their original intents. This would ensure the people to be willing to
participate in a win-win-win group shopping through social networking.

A customer
need not stick to his intentions of buying an item until the entire purchase is
completed. He can join a group but need not necessarily buy the product, even
if it is quoted best.

A vendor
need not stick to his promised quotation price as he is not sure how many of
the group members will buy from him. He even may be run by various other
factors such as time. A quote may be good only for a specific duration, say, a
week, or a month and so on.

Even the
site shall not own the responsibilities for any deviation that the customer or
vendors make in their dealings. It shall just offer a platform for the
customers and vendors to coordinate between themselves. Virtualization is the
only thing the site takes care for. The site keeps the group members anonymous
from each other. It shall also keep the quotes of the customers and vendors
transparent. It shall be responsible for a fair playing in processing the best
quote.

There is
definitely a considerable amount of responsibilities on the shoulders of the
web platform. Any social networking site would have these responsibilities
towards the public they are serving.

???????????????
Who is at loss in the above equation? Is it really the customer or the vendor
or is it really the website? I honestly say: None.

???????????????
In fact, every one in this is a winner. The customers are becoming
bargain-powerful. The vendor is still making his business, even though he loses
a little bit from his profit. But he has every opportunity to make his profit
in other upcoming groups. When the groups are continual, the vendor can rely
upon such streams for steady profits.

???????????????
The web platform can make their part of dollars through advertisements, and any
other by-products.

http://www.ShoppingReps.com is the
first such a website developed on this new innovative shopping model: Group
bargaining through social networking targeted towards volume discounts. It has
presented a suitable platform to reflect this novel shopping idea. This concept
and methodology is new to the internet world. The website offers free
membership to the shoppers and vendors. It encourages shoppers to acquire
quotes for themselves when a group is formed. The shoppers will know the size
of the group and the complete product details for which they will be requested
to fetch quotes from their own localities. Shoppers get their chance of testing
their bargain capabilities and enjoy the benefits and fun of bargaining for a
bulk order and a group.

The
website takes care of forming the groups based on the product, and the geographic
location of such intentions of purchases. Analyzing and finalizing the best
quote is also performed by the website itself.



Article Tags:
Group Shopping Through, Shopping Through Social, Through Social Networking, Social Networking Site, Group Shopping, Shopping Through, Through Social, Social Networking, Networking Site, Group Members