Last month, we wrote about the Chinese phenomenon known as tuangou, or team buying. In a nutshell, people interested in buying a certain product get together online, and then storm into a physical store at a coordinated time to negotiate a bulk discount. Tuangou is a prime example of crowd clout: consumers using their collective power to get what they want.
A new website in Malaysia does something similar, but sticks to buying and selling online. Like tuangou, Tumpang, which is Malay for pooling, makes it easy for buyers to pool their resources to get a bulk discount on everything from fabric freshener to flat screen televisions.
However, Tumpang has added an interesting twist on the seller's side. Much like eBay, anyone can post an item for sale, paying Tumpang a listing fee. The seller states what the discounted price will be and how many buyers are needed. Sellers can be regular retailers who want to offload stock, but Tumpang's blog also lists advice for incidental bulk dealers. Which could be anyone hoping to make an extra ringgit by gathering a group of buyers on Tumpang, and then placing an order directly with a manufacturer in China or Korea. Securing buyers before buying merchandise creates a low-risk form of alternative retail. Which should be music to any minipreneur's ears ;-)
Website: www.tumpang.com
Contact: support@tumpang.com
Spotted by: Webwatch Malaysia
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Wasn't letsbuyit.com something simliar? Also in the late 90s
Jesse -- yes, you're absolutely right! Our sister-site trendwatching.com's crowd clout briefing has a section on 'intention aggregators', which mentions letsbuyit.com. They include insights into why companies like letsbuyit.com didn't make it the first time round, and why they stand a much better chance now. More here:
http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/crowdclout.htm#intentions
That's sound good.
But my question is about how the cash flow runs on the site ?
And what about the product distribution ? I think it's a cost ... so who pay the Fedex or DHL services to send the products to the customers ?
Hi George,
Thanks very much for your comment. As explained in the article, Tumpang's business model is somewhat like that of eBay. Sellers pay a small listing fee. Product distribution and shipping are handled by the seller, not by Tumpang.
I hope that answers your question!
There were a couple of sites like this during the late 90s web boom. I bought a Palm V from accompany.com [later mobshop.com, later dead dot-com] for, like, fifty bucks less than anywhere else at the time because X number of people also bought. I think I bought a couple of DVDs for similar savings too.
Mercata.com was another one.
Britain W. | April 15, 2007 5:42 AM