Collective purchasing platform attacks online price

Friday, September 30, 2011 - 12:02 by Sarah Collinson

Many UK consumers will already be familiar with the price-saving potential of services like Groupon, but a new site called Buyapowa has launched this week, to bring a greater degree of social co-operation to safe shopping online.

Buyapowa essentially allows individual consumers to get lower prices on items and experiences because they will effectively be buying in bulk. The off-shoot is that prices will only drop if enough people commit to making a particular purchase.

The fact that Buyapowa works best with more shoppers involved means that people will continue to drive down costs by inviting friends and family to buy something which they also want at a lower cost through safe shopping online.

This social element means that word about Buyapowa could spread fast and so people will continue to get better deals on their items in the long term, while the site benefits from users doing the work of advertising for it.

Of course Buyapowa can only reduce prices up to an extent, but it does mean you will be able to buy an HDTV for £400 when it might cost you £1,000 in a high street store, so there are major savings to be made if it is used correctly and by a significant volume of people.

The site does not deal just in consumer electronics as you can also get cosmetics, toys, food and plenty of other top name branded products as and when they are made available.

Group buying is gradually becoming more popular online and people are learning that such services will let them save even more cash, on top of the already competitive e-commerce prices.

Whether Buyapowa is able to fit into the market alongside established rival sites remains to be seen, but its visual representations of how many users are involved in a particular listing will certainly help it along the way.