Nasty Strategies of Some of the Top Group Buying Sites in the Philippines Revealed

Group buying sites, like any other online advertising sites, employ their own marketing strategies in order to effectively promote their group deals to a wider audiences. Among these strategies include Google AdWords, Yahoo ads, Facebook ads, on-site promotions, referral bonus, rebates, mailing list, SMS broadcast, paid radio and television features and God  knows how many other strategies and gimmicks you could imagine. Amidst all these marketing eclats some top group buying sites in the Philippines push their effort even further by employing some strategies considered by some a bit out of the usual in order to maintain their edge over their competitors. Some group buying people consider these "unusual" strategies unfair. Others call it misleading. Few branded it illegal (I'm speaking in behalf of some people.)

This article about "nastiness" of some top group buying sites in the Philippines attempts to compile some of these controversies in the Philippines group buying scene today. Please be reminded that this does not reflect the personal opinion of the author in a direct way, but rather, attempts to present to the readers what people are talking about out there regarding the subject at hand.


Metrodeal
One of the most interesting (and rather brilliant) marketing strategies ever employed by a group buying site in the Philippines is Metrodeal's controversial purchase of the Group Page "Buti Pa Ang Biglaang Lakad Natutuloy; Ang Planado Hindi!" The Facebook Page was supposed to be purchased from a group of people selling Facebook Pages to businesses wanting to have a Fanbase instantly without any effort of setting up and inviting people to join in. The strategy worked so well that in fact, the purchase placed Metrodeal head to head even with Groupon and other already established group buying sites almost overnight. This shook the foundation of said huge group buying sites that the rumor (or fact?) quickly spread like wildfire throughout the web particularly on blogs all over the net. Although Metrodeal gained much in terms of sales, much negative feedback were directed to the company(?) that it forced them to finally reveal its true identity to members of "Buti Pa Ang Biglaang Lakad..." and finally renaming the group's title to "Metrodeal Philippines" last mid-June of this year (2011).

While the fake fanpage controversy is slowly subsiding another issue emerged. This time it's about Metrodeal using trade names and deal titles of other sites. Again, mid-June is the date and group buyers started seeing Facebook ads with links such as Metrodeal.com/Dealspot. The "Dealspot" trade name actually belongs to yet undisclosed company owning the copryright and trademark to "Dealspot" and "Dealspot.PH" which is considered a copyright infringement violation. The allegation is yet to be confirmed but, if ever this is true, Metrodeal may be moving to target not only their already existing members in promoting their deals but also members of other group buying sites by aiming to ride along search results related to their competitors' names, trademarks and contents.

Still on the frontline of Metrodeal Philippine's massive marketing campaign is fake advertisements. People on the group buying scene, especially those on Facebook, are accustomed to advertisements promoting supposed to be new deals that is quite enticing in terms of details and pricing. Clicking the ad, however, redirects the clicker to a page not only without the deal offer described in the ad but also contains a form asking the user to sign up for their email marketing campaign.

A Facebook advertisement on Coron deal at 52% posted by Metrodeal.

A screenshot of the page where the previous ad leads to asking the clicker to sign up to Metrodeal's newsletter service.

Megadeals (a.k.a. Buyanihan)

Buyanihan started out well on on its first months on the group buying scene but sadly, people are starting to talk about the decline on membership rate and sales. Still, Buyanihan remains to be one of the top contenders in the Philippine's group buying scene numbering around 31,000 in site membership. In order to counter the declining sales in the core front of the group buying business, rumors has it that the company is already setting out to target the group buyers refusing to sign up to Buyanihan and its contemporaries but instead opted to support newer ones. The solution: Duplication. The idea is to set up as much group buying sites as they can (just as GroupOn does) starting out with their first born, Megadeals. Born oversized and definitely spoiled by its parent site, Megadeals promises newer and better deals by offering deals from the Philippine's top food companies. Or rather "buying" the approval of latter mentioned companies to post deals to their site by allegedly subsidizing a huge part of the discount. "Sounds like bribing to me", says a source. "These discounts are obviously fake and does not follow the norms of fair dealing.", added he.

So what? It's business anyway and fair business is not business, if that's where they want tot go. Nevertheless, people who already signed up and ordered will quickly notice that, even if there are indeed new deals on the site, the site itself is obviously a duplicate (only the design was changed), the ordering process is the same, and the rate of service is also the same. In other words it is the same. Only the name was changed. Nevertheless, the new group buying site has already gathered enough followers (thanks to Globe Telecom's SMS flooding service) to get started and is doing fairly well considering that they have just started late March of this year on the group buying business.



(...to be continued)

The Art of Group Buying in the Philippines

A Group Buying Merchant's Story
Sunday, 6:37 AM: Enter Linda Guiao, a 38-year old single lady and an owner of a struggling flower shop in Makati, rose from her cozy bed almost as involuntary as when she next fumbled for her laptop by the nearby bedside table. It was 6:37 AM, almost an hour and a half before her usual morning wake-up call courtesy of her ever-annoying alarm clock. She's not annoyed this time though. In fact she's feeling a bit optimistic. Less than a minute ago she's half asleep opening her laptop's lid, now she's wide awake and gleaming. Last time she checked, her bouquet of flowers sold for the first time at a local Philippines group buying website got 24 hits. Not bad as she usually sells 10 to 20 on her store everyday. This morning, barely 18 hours after her group buying deal was posted, her goods sold more than 490 group buys. She had to get up quickly. Forty minutes later, she and her boyfriend were on their way for a four-hour trip to Baguio for floral shopping and a quick one-hour date.

Yesterday, Linda's biggest problem is having to close down her business. Today, she's on a race with time before the shop opens the next day for a flood of orders.

All-In a Group Buying Company's Day's Work
Monday, 8:30 AM: Beth Comedia froze on her bed. She's awake now. Actually, wide awake and in shock. Not by a nightmare-come-lately-in-the-morning or by some sudden noise. It's the silence. It's raining heavily outside, quite a perfect day to stay under the sheets while the cold breeze blows from her window. "But it's Monday, for Christ's sake!" she thought. Her alarm clock lies dead on the floor spitting out its batteries, probably knocked down by the curtain blown by the the last night's wind. She's late and Monday's are one those "typical days". And "typical days" working on a start up group buying company such as Dealspot.PH means a whole day of stressful work setting up appointments with group buying partners, answering inquiries from buyers, last-minute trips, endless paper works, group meetings and for heaven knows what else comes today. She's doing quite well these days though. Group buying companies pay handsome base salary not counting commissions from deals she was able to sign up from new group buying partners.

Her new phone got a headstart: 27 missed calls and 40 text messages. She heads for the shower. There's a war out there...


The Art of War, The Art of Group Buying
Everyday, group buyers numbering to hundreds of thousands jumps from site to site hunting for the perfect group buying deals. Millions of pesos pass through the worldwide electronic banking system from the purchases made for group deals through Paypal, credit card facilities, wire transfers, online banking system through Bancnet, Megalink, Maestro, Cirrus, mobile payments, virtual cards and other payment gateways. While group buyers demand for better and cheaper means to satisfy their online shopping vice, group buying companies continues to wage their war against each other, fighting over meager spoils of the present day and the riches of the future to come. Group buying, indeed, an art expressed in a business sense.

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Group buying in the Philippines is still in its infancy and it will continue to grow, at least for the next five years, before it hits a firewall. On that day, group buying will become too common that anybody else could setup his own group buying site selling anything from used cars to a bag of tea. But for now, let's not spoil the fun. Group buying is here and its hot, it's the trend and it's the present driving force behind the country's thriving e-economy. [JPNGPGNG]