Well, this is just swell, I was eyeballing o’pen for months
I check the thread, no code yet, go to work, got back from work and what do I see >)
We all know how GBest works so I am actually not pissed at them, it was expected behaviour from them, actually, that is reasonable business behaviour from any company this days, everyone will tend to first secure the $ from buyers and then order the products from manufacturer, noone wants to invest their own money, noone wants to risk getting 50 or 100 pcs of brand name (same as “not cheap”) product and then selling 1/2 the stock although many people pledged to buy because, guess what, not all of them will buy, someone will pull the plug in the last minute, and you end up with a bunch of products that are not easy to sell (=shot in the foot that all wants to avoid)…
But you just had to do it publicly, you know that all those seacret “private messaging” group buys are not invented just for fun and spamming purposes, I know that you know that answering 100+ PM in a day or 2 is no fun at all but it’s the only way this things can work…
Wrong, it works, you just have to predict all that is lurking behind all dark corners you came across the was, you don’t have to sacrifice anything, just be ready…
why should they, yesterday it was wallbuys, today it is gb, tomorrow it will be bestbuysbang or whatever, same people, same suppliers, same politics just different name in the offices across the street (from previous business). It’s just how this things work, you can hate it, boycott it, pull all hairs from your head it just won’t go away, only thing you can do is to adapt, predict, be smarter be ready…
Not justifying anyone but to my knowledge, main purpose of group buy is to attract more people to the store, most times it’s not the “profit” (I doubt that Tmart had any profit with HD2010 fiasco, when they had to send 2 lights for the discounted price of one), sometimes profit can be almost not worth the trouble but they are not on loss either so why not try to attract new buyers, some of them will buy, with groupbuy product, some other product/s, some of them will return later and buy something that makes $, they will add new registered members, word about the store will spread, more people will click on their banner. New people without personal experience (read: was not burned) will tend to try them out, make several orders… At the end it’s just the question of gaining more new buyers than the ones you lost (burned)…