Will Lingerie Group Buying Website be a Billion-RMB Business?

Purchasing a 369RMB Triumph bra for only 79RMB? No, you are not daydreaming. You can get an unbelievable good deal by making purchases together in a new breed of “group buying” websites in China now.

In recent days, “group buying” is the hottest keyword that is referred on TV, radio and our circle of friends. It has become the most popular way of shopping in China that attracts a large group of buyers each day for a good deal. This sales strategy has proven to be the most successful shopping strategy in China that connects strangers over the internet to purchase the same item. In this way, the shoppers can benefit by paying less while the business benefits by selling multiple items at once.

Nytuan.com is one of these group-buying websites while different from them, because it is only dedicated to provide lingerie for consumers. Since April 2, 2010, Nytuan.com has offered over 14 deals for consumers. The most popular deal has attracted 581 consumers to buy. And the number of consumer is climbing upward.

Will lingerie group buying website be another new distribution channels? Will it place impact to the common B2C lingerie websites or even replace them?

The Origin of Group Buying

Group buying is not a new concept in China. In the past time, people conducted group buying offline which is limited in the circle of their friends. So it is usually hard to successfully bind a lot of people together. To arrange a team is much time-consuming that few people bother to do it although they may get a sound discount from it.

As a matter of fact, people in China like face-to-face bargain, which is actually a way of life in China. Shoppers can get pleasure and proud from a tough bargain and feel more secure if they touch or test the product themselves. This is also one of the reasons why regular online shopping develops relatively slowly in China.

Many shoppers prefer to cash-on-delivery because of a crisis of trust and honesty. Although they have realized the convenient of online shopping, but they still not really trust the online sellers. “To join forces with other team buyers in the group buying website with a large group of registered members will not only give them a good price but also a trust. “said Ouyang Jixing, deputy director of www.020tgw.com, a team-buying Web site in Guangzhou.” The aim of our website is to bring together distributors of branded goods with potential customers and earn commissions from successful team buys. “

Thanks to the rise of social media and platforms which make sharing content much easier than before. To group up a large amount of consumers online becomes possible in a short time.  Who doesn’t want to share a deal that is too good to be true with friends? The really good deals spread like wildfire through social networks and via the huge range of sharing in Groupon.

As the group buying website Groupon become more and more popular in America, Chinese businessmen begin to aware this market and imitate the operating model of Groupon--the website is 100% free for registration. People can get an e-mail from Groupon about the daily coupon available in your located city after becoming a registered member. Groupon is just like an organizer/agent that finds a certain amount of customers and then, approaches a merchant or seller with a proposal. The offer is good for one day and only valid if a minimum number of people sign up and agree to pay for the coupon in advance. Now, this popular group buying website has over 285,000 registered users.

Is everybody a winner in the game of group buying?

To the consumers, they can benefit from a steep discount from the group buying website.

To the company who giving out a deep discount, they can gain interest from volume, not margin. And also, this is a kind of low cost promotional campaign, which is even more effective than giving out free testing for introducing a new brand/ product or dispose of off-season products. In addition, people with coupons may come back next time paying full price or even bring friends with them if they applause it.

To the group buying website, they can gain commissions from the sales. And the biggest winner so far in this game is apparently Groupon, which had net gross sales of $35 million last year and expects that will rise to $400 million this year. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason revealed in an interview that the company will focused on increasing the number of cities to 100 by the end of this year.

Groupon’s success has attracted a large number of copycats. According to China’s Internet Group Buying Survey 2010, there are over one thousand clones that have popped up recently in China. Meituan.com is the pioneer in this industry. Taobao.com, Asian biggest B2B platform, also follows this trend by introducing a group buying channel, called “Ju Hua Suang” meaning getting to gather to reach the best deal, on its website in March this year.

Now, some leading group buying websites, like Meituan.com, Lashou.com, Ayatuan.com and Manzuo.com, have successfully attracted millions of venture capital investment to help grow their business. But whether they can develop well in the long term is still waiting to see.

Opportunities of Lingerie Group Buying Website

Although, thousands and millions of people have joined in the group buying trends, some people still concern about the security and quality.

Some revealed that they do want to try group buying, but the range of choice is either too wide or too limited that they cannot find what they want from these websites. For example, if a people want to buy lingerie in a group buying website, she has to wait for a long time. When she finally found a lingerie deal available on the website, it may probably not the very style for her. So, a special group buying website which provides a specific kind of products, such as lingerie, comes up in the market

Can Lingerie Group Buying Website Success?

Nytuan.com is the first group buying website that dedicated to provide only lingerie deals in China. It mainly offers European style lingerie with 50% to 90% discount.

Nytuan.com claimed that their product quality is assured because all of them are made in China’s exporting manufacturers which export high quality products to Europe and America. And the lingerie style is mainly sexy, luxury and mature.

All deals should be prepaid via Alipay(Something like Paypal) in Nytuan.com. The website said that consumers can ask for exchange if the size and fitting is not suitable. Refund is also allowed if the quality is not good enough. But the transportation expenses should be on consumers.

Usually, each deal in Nytuan.com last for 3 to 7 days. And 2 deals are allowed to be available at the same time in a certain period on the website.

They also said that Nytuan.com’s development plan is to cover the website service in more and more cities in China. In order to grow rapidly, they also hope to attract venture capital investment from capital market (to list on Nasdaq is their goal).

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