eBay India has launched a group buying section, called Social Shopping. It offers discounted deals for buyers in Mumbai and Delhi/NCR regions where one can pay a minimum entry price to book the deal and be counted amongst a group. How it works If the sale reaches its target number of buyers chosen by the merchant in the given period of time, all who signed up become eligible and need to pay the remaining amount directly to the merchant before the expiry date of the offer. If the buyer count does not reach its assigned limit, the minimum price is refunded. The section has a Countdown timer to indicate the days, hours and minutes remaining as well as a number of buyer indicator. Users can also share the deal on Twitter, Facebook and via e-mail. At present it only offers one deal a day. A few points worth noting: - Late Entrant: Although group buying in India is still at a nascent stage, eBay India is a late entrant considering players like Deals and You, Taggle, Buy The Price and SnapDeal are already promoting group buying and daily deals. - Leveraging Existing User Base: The difference is that eBay India already has a fairly large existing user base that it can leverage for daily deals, while others will have to spend substantially more on marketing. - Group Buying vs Daily Deals: Not all daily deals sites offer group buying, wherein the deal becomes active after a certain minimum customers confirm…
