An Empirical Study of Customers’ Purchase Intentions from Australian Group Buying Sites

Abstract

Group buying is a form of e-commerce, but works similar to bulk buying principle, that allows selling of products and services by third party companies through their websites. Based on a survey done by Canstarblue, out of 250 registered group buying sites, Cudo, Groupon, Ourdeal, Living Social and Scoopon are ranked Australia's top five group buying sites. Research suggests that identifying right products and services to be sold as group buying deals can improve sales and profit margins of these group buying sites. However, there is a research gap in understanding what factors influence customers' purchase decisions. Hence, this paper studies different deals offered by the top 5 Australian group buying sites and presents an analysis based on the primary data collected using systematic sampling method from these websites to understand the role of different variables such as discount rate, deal price, product category and time to purchase deals. Findings reveal that customers' intention to purchase products and services are influenced by discount rate and product categories. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge and business community by revealing the influence of different factors that would have bearing towards customers' intention to purchase from group buying sites.

How effective complaint management affects customer retention

“…The group-buying website, as an intermediary, collects a commission on each sale as compensation for bringing customers to the merchant. Grandhi et al (2016) claim that companies that offer high discounts attract more customers and sales through group buying. Cao et al (2018) question the concept of one-size-fits-all group discounts, as it may challenge customers' confidence in product quality.…”

Untitled

“…These results have been found to motivate the use of coupons, especially cents-off coupons (Cremer 1984;Narasimhan 1984). Generous discounts generate more sales from group buying customers (Grandhi, Chugh, and Wibowo 2016). The online group buying act is characterized by the dual value creation philosophy of marketing (Kotler and Armstrong 2009) that both sellers and buyers benefit through it (Anand and Aron 2003).…”

Drivers that Impact the Merchants’ Repeat Intention for Group Deal Promotions

“…These results have been found to motivate the use of coupons, especially cents-off coupons (Cremer 1984;Narasimhan 1984). Generous discounts generate more sales from group buying customers (Grandhi, Chugh, and Wibowo 2016). The online group buying act is characterized by the dual value creation philosophy of marketing (Kotler and Armstrong 2009) that both sellers and buyers benefit through it (Anand and Aron 2003).…”