Get great deals with "Group Buying" in the Philippines

I'm not really a fan of online shopping and the sort but there have been recent groups of companies that started Group Buying in the Philippines. Group Buying, according to Wikipedia,

is also known as collective buying, offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers would make the purchase.

This means that if a certain Group Buying website is offering a certain product, an interested buyer can get great discounts if several other buyers also opt to buy the same product. The deal will only push through if the number of buyers reach the quota. This maybe because if the number of buyers don't reach a certain number, the dealer will not earn interest for what they are selling.

Group Buying is very useful for us Filipinos as we are fund of haggling for discounts all the time. In this case, the discount is already laid out for us and the discounts can be big depending on the price of the product. I got interested in this weeks ago when a website I'm following (Yugatech) started it's own group buying site called Yugadeals. I checked out the deal they had and thought, hey this is a nice deal - a thousand peso discount on a 23" KTC HD TV. From Php 8,400 to Php 7,350 price discount looks like a good deal. This is only their first product though and quality and trustworthiness of the site is still pending.

There are also other websites available out there and here are some of them in alphabetical order:

• http://awesome.ph/
• http://www.beeconomic.com.ph/
• http://www.buyanihan.com/
• http://www.cashcashpinoy.com/
• http://www.cheapipay.com.ph/
• http://www.citypoynt.com/
• http://www.cleverbuy.com.ph/
• http://www.couppie.com/
• http://crazydeals.ph/
• http://www.cuponz.com/
• http://www.dealdozen.com/
• http://www.dealgrocer.com/
• http://www.dealspot.ph/
• http://dealstent.com/
• http://www.ensogo.com.ph/
• http://kuponan.ebaysocialapps.com/
• http://www.localroam.ph/
• http://www.lucky7.ph/
• http://www.metrodeal.com/
• http://muraito.com/
• http://pakyaw.com.ph/
• http://plejee.com/
• http://www.salamat.ph/
• http://www.tipidto.com/
• http://www.twangoo.com/manila/en/city,4,manila
• http://www.winilacity.com/
• http://www.wowdeals.ph/
• http://yugadeals.com/

Some deals work in a way where they will offer a product with great discount, sometimes up to 50% less. These websites have different options of payments but similarly you can pay through the conventional credit card, Paypal, or just bank deposit. If you paid through bank deposit, some sites require that you also put your bank account information so that when a deal is not pushed through, the refund will be deposited back to your account.

The thing with group buying is that you cannot test out the product before buying them. So the lesson here is: "With great discounts, come great risks". Research the product first and ensure the quality. Nobody wants to buy something and just have it returned because of a defect, that's a big kill-joy. And also, don't forget to research about the company first if they are trustworthy.

Copyright 2011 Notes on Hobbies | Get great deals with "Group Buying" in the Philippines