Australia’s group buying sky-high growth with peeved consumers
Australian
online group buying market is likely to touch or surpass the mark of
$400 million at the turn of 2012, said a leading information and
communication technology analyst Telsyte.
During
the first quarter, the revenue stood at $71 million and by next quarter
of 2011 it went up to $123 million, the ICT analyst showed in its media
release.
Total
2.6 million vouchers were sold in April through June with an average
sale of 900,000 coupons registered and over 4,000 deals published per
month.
Recreation, leisure, and household services are reported to be the popular categories on which consumers hanker for discounts.
The
prospering discounts market where for example the enviable Groupon is
celebrating astronomical 1,000 percent quarter-on-quarter growth cannot
break out itself from the chain of complaints that are tied up in
general to an industry in its introductory stage.
Telsyte
boasts of titanic mechanism to aggregate thousands of deals from 50
sites in Australia to build market intelligence. Online group buying
sites include Stardeals (Groupon), LivingSocial along with Jumponit, Scoopon, Cudo, Spreets,
OurDeal, Ouffer, OfferMe, YellowPages, JigoCity, Deals.com (former
Zoupon), Dupon, DealMe, Voucher.com, DealMonkey, DailyBonanza, Deal2Day,
Zizzle, Grabone, Wimzy, Spurr, etc.
Group
buying companies have to face the ire of discount seekers who whine on
loss of money, non-delivery of buying value, problems in redemption and
refunds, or misrepresentation of facts.
The
department of justice registered complaints against a leading group
buying company for its causing irritation to several deal holders
including one who felt estranged upon reaching a fitness club that was
overcrowded due to excessive uptake of vouchers.
The
New Castle Herald reported several such anecdotes to bear out the
version that online group buying sometimes become disgusting for bargain
hunters in Australia.
Consumer
Affairs Victoria has recorded 160 complaints against group buying
companies until September as compared 22 registered in 2010, it noted.
Defending
the officials of the group buying companies said grievances were part
and parcel at introductory lifecycle. Since group buying sites are
recent entrant in e-retail of Australian market—online collective buying
relies on prepayment model and thus comes into action once customers
shell out money in advance before actually assuming ownership titles—the
complaints are unavoidable, they felt. With the trial-and-error phase
to be over, they believed to wield full control over problematic issues.
Until
then, do consumers continue to suffer, questioned an Aussie in a media
report who called for an alternative model that guaranteed no loss (both
financially and mentally) to consumers.
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Tariq
Saeedi is an expert writer and editor, he has been writing for several
online and offline publications. He holds a marketing degree and
currently working for Group Buying Website, Dealaboo – www.dealaboo.com
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