Confessions of a Corporate Shopaholic

In The United States, there have been over 200 sites, led by Groupon, offering discounted deals to the public over volume buying.  The leader Groupon is rumored to have rejected numerous buyout offers from Yahoo and Google offering as much as 6 billion US dollars.  Now the trend has blown to Hong Kong and China and some of those newly established sites are also rumored to be approached by Groupon itself (the tackily named local site UBuyIBuy).  It all sounds like a promising new shopping phenomenon.

In the States the targeted demographics is supposedly young, educated female customers.  I would say it is probably similar in this neck of the woods.  The deals I hear are largely focused on health, fitness, beauty and dining areas.  There are a lot of vacationers here and so I also see a whole lot of travel and hotel deals as well.

One common sociological drawback of buying coupons is that customers are always tempted to buy without really needing the merchandise.  The deals and coupons are so tempting that it feels stupid not to take advantage of them.  These bargain hunters fall into traps where they are stuck with expiring coupons and unwanted products.  In a highly competitive city like Hong Kong, I see people lining up for sales all the time, and more often than not, the need of not missing out on any opportunities shared or overheard from their friends and colleagues far outweighs the need of buying exactly what’s on offer.

No wonder why merchants see these portals as fantastic business partners to boost sales.

On the corporate side however, suppliers hate to recognize how much collective buying power we have, even within the same group of companies.  They can make more money by selling separately to different business groups, departments or users.  They will also try to differentiate as much as possible the requirements so that every sale appears to be a standalone product or service.  When we come on board, the number one task we perform is to go through the company’s spend records and run a full list of spend by suppliers.  With that we can approach each of them and negotiate the lowest price that benefits all cost centers of the company.  That also explains why we are now sourcing regionally if not globally, so that we can cover the biggest volumes possible.

So when I know my customers do check with their friends and relatives for bulk bargains in their personal lives, I do not understand why they wouldn’t pick up the phone and call us for assistance in the work place.  Well, is it just because it is the company’s money and not theirs?