July 28, 2007

eSwarm: Group Buying Online

Duncan Riley

78 comments »

Boulder, Colorado based eSwarm aims to bring buyers and sellers together with a model that is similar to bulk buying clubs.

Buyers register for a free account then join current swarms (groups of buyers) or create new ones. Swarms can be focused on any consumer good, debt refinancing, pre-paid gift and debit cards and even insurance products. Sellers then bid for the business.

The theory is that the larger the swarm, the more attractive it will be to sellers. Once a seller lodges a first bid, membership to the swarm is frozen and other businesses have 48 hours to counter bid.

eSwarm also provides charities and organizations with a fundraising tool; creators of swarms can stipulate that a percentage of the total sale is donated to their charity of choice.

There is not a lot of activity on the site as yet, but it is growing. CEO Tim Newcomb says that eSwarm is a “global economic revolution;” it’s not, but it does have potential.

Sphere It

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nicolas leroy

July 29th, 2007 at 9:56 am

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July 31st, 2007 at 8:23 pm

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Jay (living in First Life)

July 28th, 2007 at 10:37 pm

It does have potential? Duncan, where’s that resignation again? Seriously, do you even have a brain that processes logical thoughts?

People already have Costco and Sam’s Club - to beat those stores, you’d need an insane “swarm”. Companies that already have popular products, will not accept these swarms. Companies that have unknown products may be ok with it as a way to generate interest, but why would there be a swarm around those products in the first place?

Those who need it, won’t get it. Those who don’t, will get it, and ignore it. Goodnight Duncan.
Jessica Mah

July 28th, 2007 at 11:18 pm

I’m not sure if the economics of this works, but I must say, a word-of-mouth marketing model is built right into the system! Incredibly clever!

I mean, to save money, you have to get other people to join your swarm. Getting other people to join = awesome for both you, eSwarm, and the seller.

Now let’s see where this marketplace ends up…
alexis (reddit)

July 28th, 2007 at 11:23 pm

I’m so happy to see that mascots are cool again.
matt

July 28th, 2007 at 11:36 pm

This was one of my favorite ridiculous business models from the dot com days. Glad to see it’s back; probably a good sign of the coming apocalypse 2.0.
mikvah talk

July 28th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

Anyone feel likened to an insect around here?
Rob Leathern

July 28th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

Hmmm I wonder when you guys write some of these posts, whether you bother to research all the previous attempts at or (in many cases) flame outs regarding this idea. As Matt points out, that fact may be a “wow, we’re recycling old business models, this stuff isn’t really new” point to be made. This was indeed one of the big crazy ideas that was going to be difficult to make work, with such winners as Mercata ($89 million gone), Mobshop, actBIG, and many others. I feel some further context is justified, instead of another breathless TC puff piece.
Andrew

July 28th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

well the market is a little bit different this time around, way more people are online than there were in 1999…this could become a pretty good space to enter, since there really isn’t any active competition
Andrew

July 28th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

wasn’t Mercata and Mobshop the same thing? I think they changed their name to mobshop. And I think they are still around, they retooled their software to do group buys for gov’t contracts…or something along those lines
Rob Leathern

July 29th, 2007 at 12:00 am

Mobshop and Mercata were two different companies. You are correct- Mobshop dropped the consumer side of the business in 2001 right after Mercata went out of business: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A9679C8B63

I agree the chances of one of these types of sites working now is far greater, but I still think it’s important that the article include some of the information about those that came before… otherwise it seems more like a press release with screenshots than anything else.
Goo

July 29th, 2007 at 12:09 am

didnt this happen already in the mid 1990’s ? In europe the one that comes to mind is letsbuyit.com which was established in many european countries.

Thus Letsbuyit still survives it isn’t as big as it originally was.
Francisco Gimenez

July 29th, 2007 at 12:10 am

Andrew, I just found this wikipedia entry about Mercata and mobshop.com. It seems that mobshop was part of Accompany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lafir/Group_buy).

I think the concept is great in theory. The previous attempts had plenty of fundining. I don’t know why they failed. It would be interesting to know. I wish esworm the best of luck and I hope they succeed since this is a very interesting idea.
Dave

July 29th, 2007 at 12:12 am

the idea isn’t that bad… i can tell you that offline there is a bunch of people doing the very same thing to buy weed and other drugs at a cheaper price…
Steven Loi

July 29th, 2007 at 1:32 am

One thing that separated TechCrunch from Mashable since the beginning was the thought and genuine input Mike always puts in his posts. He wasn’t simply putting up an article to get it out there. He often was a little slower than Mashable, but what I did enjoy reading was his commentary, good or bad. With the recent writers, I hope they can start their opinions and back it up with evidence. That way, they’ll be more of what Mike is to TechCrunch and less of this another person trying to push an article online so readers have *something* to read.

Nonetheless, it’s not to bash. I’m just hope I can read about real potential companies with reasons to back it up. If not, I rather here about rumored buyouts. At least with those, if it were regarding publicly traded companies, it’d give me some tips to look into to play the market, i.e. MSFT and YHOO rumor.
Sebastian W.

July 29th, 2007 at 1:33 am

In Europe we had “letsbuyit.com” and that was a huge success!
/sarcasm off
Paul Lomax

July 29th, 2007 at 3:47 am

Aah, letsbuyit.com - now that’s a piece of interesting dotcom history! IPOed /after/ the bubble burst then went into admininistration and laid off staff in 2001, supposedly bailed out by Kim Schultz, then it turns out it was a sham and he got a 20 month suspended sentence for insider share dealing.. Then it got €4m investment from Global Emerging Markets New York.

Looking at Alexa it seems to have closed shop in around 2004, but there doesn’t seem to have been much reporting on that fact. But in March this year, plans were announced to relaunch letsbuyit.com in August 2007. This time it appears to be a French company behind it.

Is it a sign of boom 2.0 that all the failed dotcoms are coming back? At least boo.com reinvented itself…
neil

July 29th, 2007 at 4:10 am

I had a recent look at a site in Moscow, Russia (more of an operation than a website really) that allows people who can get cheap goods (kids clothes toys, womens fashion, mens fashion etc) then tout to a market online to get groups of about 10-20 buyers who then get the goods for about wholesale price. There is a real buzz about this site, its insanely popular and has a genuine online and offline social network. The word of mouth about it is huge.

It relies on people getting goods into this market at a cheaper than shops price. Can something like that happen in the states? Ignoring clothes, how about credit cards or mobile phone contracts? Surely big financial houses or telcos arent going to offer at a discount to either their existing resellers or own brand operations?

I can only see eswarm working where it can find products at a genuine discount, be it chinese electricals or italian furniture, stuff that is not necc. intended for the us market in the first place. - but that requires genuine economies of scale to get that product shipped to the states. Could be a good place for entrepreneurs from abroad…but then I haven’t even mentioned the risk of getting ripped off….
ChandraB

July 29th, 2007 at 5:37 am

This won’t work - Mercata, ActBig, VirtualMarkets and MobShop all covered this space in Web 1.0. Mercata and MobShop had some serious $ behind them (Vulcan Ventures) and still failed. They got some tractions, but I remember the transaction volume was quite low.

The interesting thing is that Mercata actually has been granted patents on the Group Buying process - will we see patent enforcement in order to recoup their losses?

If I were them I’d think about providing an API so other sites could provide the same fuctionality on an OEM basis. Alone none of these site could provide enough # of users to create a viable buying group - but together as a network they could.
Giridhar

July 29th, 2007 at 5:48 am

This is usefull for those who want to find their costmer, but the main problem is time to execute swarm is very littile ie only 48 hour, It will restrict seller to get those byer who can purchase at higher price. Anyway my article is ready for digg for eswarm.
Zeta

July 29th, 2007 at 6:32 am

Duncan, Mike, can you have separate RSS feeds so that we can quietly ignore Duncan’s rumblings, please?

One of the reasons why wholesale price is lower than retail is the customer service or lack of thereof. Will consumer law apply to every member of the swarm or the entire swarm?
Zergrinch

July 29th, 2007 at 6:48 am

Nothing new. Team Buying’s been out there for a while now.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/.....-woap.html
Chase Dalton

July 29th, 2007 at 7:10 am

The team over at CrowdSprout are developing a different approach that involves widgets, and their scanning of products contained on the widget’s parent page. This is where it gets interesting, when social networks meet group buying. I’d expect to see plenty others entering this market.
hmk

July 29th, 2007 at 7:44 am

The site needs either a good dba or php person.
As connections are timing out
Mustafa

July 29th, 2007 at 8:30 am

Is that a Praying Mantis?
Thomas

July 29th, 2007 at 8:54 am

Hi folks,

I was the founder of Akabi.com it was the first online group buying website …

I sold it to Multimania just before bubble. So I had time to think about this idea. In sipte of all bankrupcies I can definitely tell you it’s a good business model to launch now but it depends as these companies will do it…I have ideas about it

Thomas
Now I am relauching a new venture Trivop.com have a look…or check in Techcrunch
Nicolas

July 29th, 2007 at 9:34 am

@Chase (21): CrowdSprout doesn’t allow new people to register right now (at least I didn’t find the place where to register ). Private beta?
Chad

July 29th, 2007 at 9:44 am

Although the idea isn’t new, if someone can come along and finally execute it properly and gain enough early buzz in the process, it could have legs. Maybe if they try to focus on one segment of the market and not try to the wall mart approach this one could work.
Jono

July 29th, 2007 at 10:16 am

It seems like a good idea, but it also seems that its only being executed because it “sounds” like it could work. On paper, sure, something like this seems revolutionary. But in practicality? Will the consumer actually benefit from this? What kind of sellers are going to try and connect with these buyers? And is this necessary in a consumer market where people buy retail for themselves?
gouch

July 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am

Fire Ducan.
Raj

July 29th, 2007 at 10:51 am

A perfect facebook ap - probably a KILLER facebook ap - I mean think about it - instant swarms - save couple bucks - everyone in your social circle buys the same exact thing - so then you have more in common - eventually we all look alike - narcissism and world peace go hand in hand, right? You will save the world eSwarm and Facebook! How did I ever interact with my friends or buy stuff before you came around???

Duncan - you need to write instead of recite man!
Chase Dalton

July 29th, 2007 at 10:59 am

@Raj(33): A CrowdSprout aggregate buying widget for Facebook is just days away…
Mustafa

July 29th, 2007 at 11:16 am

I figured out! That’s an ant not a mantis!
Amy Wilsch

July 29th, 2007 at 11:33 am

What’s up with all these new companies pouring out of Colorado lately? replacing Austin?
S

July 29th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

If you want to call this a company. Seriously, how do you guys take someone who calls this “a global economic revolution” seriously?
Anthony

July 29th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

As someone that has been involved with many “group purchases” organized by automotive forum members over the past eight years (now referred to as social networks), I see a big problem with this model…margins. Back during web 1.0, this model did not work and there were far fewer retailers selling products online and margins were much greater. Now, especially in the automotive space, margins online are almost non-existent for group purchases, so I don’t see a lot of retailers jumping on board and bidding prices down, especially if the retailer has to give away what little profit they have made on additional fees.
Steve

July 29th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

I disagree with Antony, Seller will bid on deals. the profit margin is always there since business are selling large among of goods so quickly, the product stock ratio will be low, and it helps the cash flow. You can treat it as a newer, faster distribution channel.
Dominic

July 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

With ebay stores, amazon,ubid, and millions of other ecommerce sites, what makes you think this will have any traction whatsoever ? The social networks can’t and won’t support it. Deadpool in less than a year without huge bucks behind it. Let’s get real here! Everyone is banking on FB and it gets more ridiculous everyday.
yucks@

July 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

Damn… After reading the post… There are some people here don’t seem to like Duncan. I wonder why?

I think we got grammar police
jose

July 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm

I have serious doubts of the succeess of this idea. It isn´t bad but it´s difficult to apply.
moxie

July 29th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

This kinda of group buying is extremely popular in China and very successful too. I couldn’t remember names but there are several web 1.0 tries during the 90s .com boom but they all disappeared. The conclusion seems that this type of thing is not fit into America culture. It’ll be interesting to see how far this one can go. Regardless, the is a very OLD business idea.
screw up

July 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

1% would be me. I support duncan to stay TC. I would sign Petition.

Question:

Why do 70-80% TC readers hate Duncan soo much?

Ahhh screw you people!!!
Gloria White

July 29th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

this time is different….
they have AJAX
RC

July 29th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

Can’t we all just get along?

I always wanted to say that!

I couldn’t see myself investing in this business since I don’t have any money, but once I land my first job I’m going on vacation!
Craig Cockburn

July 29th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

How is this different to letsbuyit.com (currently being redeveloped but which has been around since about 2000?)

Whilst crowd promotion can seem to be a good thing (oh look my friend recommended this it MUST be good…) there is a big danger that if everone jumps on this particular bandwagon it will just become another form of spam. It needs to be managed very carefully if it is not to get out of hand.

Finally, I am growing increasingly wary of any Web 2.0 site that uses crowdsourcing/groupthink as an economic model. The crowdsourced sites that have made money have largely been for the founders and based on how many adverts the site could sell and nothing to do with the economic model of “the wisdom of crowds”. Indeed one crowdsourced site I was involved with cited the fact that I was in a remote location as the reason they couldn’t work with me, but this was exactly the same model of working they were proposing for their user base. Oh and has “the home of Crowdsourcing” CambrianHouse made any money either?
TECHCRUNCH NOT FIRED DUNCAN!!!

July 29th, 2007 at 2:19 pm

@Zeta, Jay, gouch, and the rest of TC readers…

I like to say…. Duncan is not an american animal blogger or jackass blogger.

Stop firing Ducan. You are killing my entertainment.
Stay… Stay… Stay… Duncan…
John Brooks Pounders

July 29th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Our website, SaveUpwards.com, already has this functionality. It is bit different however. We are wanting to do brick and mortar “crowds”, “swarms” or whatever. We are calling ours uprisings. If you want to check out how we are handling it go to http://www.saveupwards.com/uprising.php. The system has still yet to be integrated as a part of the site but is fully functional. I definitely believe that team buying if made popular could revolutionize commerce today.
John Brooks Pounders

July 29th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

Sorry for the repost but it looks like my link was killed with the (.) at the end. Here it is again:
http://www.saveupwards.com/uprising.php
Nerd Forum

July 29th, 2007 at 3:19 pm

In theory it seems nice, but to me, it seems like people are just going to lose money on it. Sellers could make more money on eBay or another, simpler site.

-Chris
http://www.nerdcouncil.com
beng

July 29th, 2007 at 3:21 pm

save upwards, #1,300,000 on alexa ? most people could fart and get a better ranking than that.
Andrew

July 29th, 2007 at 3:29 pm

Yes just to be hours late and follow upon everyone else; this is far from the first time its been done thus not an original idea - I’m unconvinced the economics will stack up against suppliers that can already haggle vast discounts for vast buying, from suppliers, on behalf of customers/users.

I had an office below one (Cambridge, UK) during the dot com boom (just trying to remember what they were called) and they went very bust very badly - it was never going to work.
aa

July 29th, 2007 at 4:01 pm

asdasdsad
Ed

July 29th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

I was incubated by a fund in the first dot bang. It was aligned to Lets Buy It….I note they are coming back in Aug of this year…Here we go again…
aggregation works in the right hands - today you have to align it to right market places. Isn’t it aggregation in niche areas…Wikinomics gives you the clues!
David Mackey

July 29th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

I like the idea. I’ll be signing up. Will have to see how often one gets a reduced price. Will be hard to compete with the pricing companies like Amazon can offer.
John Brooks Pounders

July 29th, 2007 at 10:39 pm

Beng, feel free to fart all over our site.
Jay (living in First Life)

July 29th, 2007 at 11:20 pm

@ bdb - I have no qualms to continue asking the idiot Duncan Riley to resign. This is Web 2.0 after all - wisdom of the crowds and all. If you notice how many people are asking for him to quit, then you’d understand that maybe someday TechCrunch will fire him after realizing how much he damages TC’s credibility.

Just because something failed in Web 1.0 isn’t a valid reason for it to fail in Web 2.0. That is a valid argument. That being said, some things will never be good ideas. Not even everything that is a good idea is an executable business.

The problem with a lot of Web 2.0 businesses is that they fail to understand the dynamics of business interactions. Eswarm is addressing the wrong market - as someone pointed out earlier, it may make sense from a B2B standpoint, but for regular bargains, we’ve already got Costco, Sam’s Club, Aldi, etc.
ben mackerel

July 30th, 2007 at 6:22 am

capitalism tells us the customer is king so in theory ’swarms’ should be able to state their needs and if a supplier can offer the product all should be happy.
the reality is individuals wish to be kings and do not work well in groups.
i think in order to work well we would need to either follow the chinese example linked in an post above, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/.....-woap.html
this gives the supplie the knowledge he could have a large core base of customers
or groups organize and elect a person to haggle with a supplier.

the theory is great but the individualism in us prevents it working in reality.
anonymouse

July 30th, 2007 at 6:38 am

if this couldn’t work in the dot-com money free-for-all, why would it work now?
Gubi

July 30th, 2007 at 7:31 am

I keep enjoying how smart people are here. Give me your thoughts on the following:
1.a popular Canon camera is being sold online in the price range of 670$-900$ (same item, same terms, good suppliers), so, if somebody wants to buy 100 such cameras, don’t you think even the cheaper supplier will offer a better price?
2. If the City of Bolder want to buy 100 dell PC’s, do you think they will get the same price as buying 1 Dell PC online?
3. Costco was mentioned here a lot, BUT - aren’t they a potential supplier?
Let’s try to be concrete, no waving hands and making declarations on world hunger and DotCom bubble.
Neil

July 30th, 2007 at 7:33 am

to 62….cause only people with beards used web 1.0, my wife uses web 2.0 so thats saying something.

Look, there are millions more users on the net now than 10 years ago, even 2 years ago, which is why sites are getting funding.

….ah..you’ve stopped reading…

um………make a Facebook widget……………..is that TC enough for you?????

P.S. keep Duncan, but I suggest that each week, Duncan, Michael and the rest have to keep an open tally of which sites they think will take off. Loser forfeits a months salary at the end of the year)))
markg

July 30th, 2007 at 7:58 am

stupid 5 years ago. stupid still. people dont behave like this and merchants dont want to reward people for this sort of behavior.
Carl

July 30th, 2007 at 8:31 am

@Jay: “but for regular bargains, we’ve already got Costco, Sam’s Club, Aldi, etc.”

And for books we have Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. There’s definitely no room for an online bookstore…
Brooke Hammerling

July 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am

It’s called MobShop, it’s called a non original idea and it is called scaring me into thinking history is repeating itself.
AmigoBB

July 30th, 2007 at 8:49 am

Screw the fact that this is a recycled business idea. I think this idea is great, another way to give back through making purchases you were already going to make and an opportunity to save money.
Gubi

July 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am

If you think it would not work, try to answer why? and guess what - “it has been done” is not an answer, and neither is “it’s a silly idea”. Try to answer the logic on post 64.
By the way, couple of recycled ideas are doing just fine out there, comparison sites, virtual worlds, mmog and others. Ideas success is always the combination of timing and execution.
Anthony

July 30th, 2007 at 10:20 am

Gubi,

Here is why, economically, I don’t think this model will work. This is my opinion, and I may be wrong.

1) I don’t believe that Tier 1 suppliers like Costco and Amazon (using those because they have been mentioned) will participate as suppliers for a program like this because they are already business models with razor thin margins and need to make a profit. If they find that there are items offered by other retailers with which they feel they can compete on price, they will lower their prices accordingly as “specials” on their respective sites. These will ultimately be broadcast through the social network and people will opt to purchase from Amazon rather than an unknown supplier bidding on eSwarm. Amazon gets the business, the buyer gets the piece of mind and Amazon does not have to pay any additional referral fees (ie. give up even more margin)

2) History is relevant in this case because when the initial sites mentioned in this space were launched, there were far fewer comparison pricing sites and social networks. If I want to find the best price on a Canon digital camera and purchase it from a reputable retailer, I can find the best price in a few minutes. (it may not necessarily be the lowest price, but the best price in my mind, manufacturer warranty, return policy, privacy policies from the seller, etc.)

3) The comparison of the model to a single potential buyer bidding out for multiple units of a product is not an apples-to-apples comparison. If we take that scenario, and make the assumption that the seller needs to make a profit, there are economies of scale to selling 100 units of an item to one buyer, including reduced shipping costs, single point of invoicing and customer service, etc. It is very different from 100 individuals contracting with one seller.

4) Unless I am misunderstanding them, the referral fees have a multi-level marketing feel to them. If eSwarm only accepts 501(c)3 organizations into their swarms, it sounds good, but I would fear that we suddenly see a new breed of spam, encouraging people to get discounts on products so the queen bee can make some additional money.

I hope that makes sense.
OnlineOmaha

July 30th, 2007 at 11:55 am

Lots of good comments — the one I have not seen yes is that suppliers will know in advance their margins and volume — If I’m a potential supplier, I like that -

I know up front how many widgets (swarmed units) I know my shipping / distribution costs (presumably eSwarm will provide the recipeint / swarmes location to suppliers) — I know my fees (eSwarm collection and sometimes the donation to a cause percentage) and I know my costs.

It could work if every mom and pop organization uses it for their day to day needs — if the local softball team needs equipmen, swarm for it.

In sum, this has potential regardless if its an old idea — lots of recycled ideas make money when a different twist or spin is put in place or when sheer market dynamics (read number of interent users) change.

Look at wall street — investment bankers make money building conglomerates; then they make money breaking the conglomerates apart –and this repeats.
bbadboy

July 30th, 2007 at 7:17 pm

There’s another site around called SwarmBuy.com that uses a similar model but doesn’t take a commission and doesn’t use a winner takes all formula. Perhaps it has a better model.
oscar

July 31st, 2007 at 12:55 am

Maybe the model takes it into account but, how would you be sure the whole “swarm” will end up buying the product?

Imagine you take part in a swarm to buy a car.

At the beginning, with the ‘heat’ of the moment -a new website, a great idea, impressive expectations, ‘I need this car!!’,…- you think a car worth $18,000 will cost you $15,000 (maybe over expectation, but no one gives you a clue on the “discount” you’ll have). Then, it turns out that the maximal offer by sellers is $17,500 (far from what you thought and far from what you want to pay).

Will you HAVE to buy it or you can say.. “oh, no.. that’s not what I thought..” and abandon the swarm? I think it’s difficult to have suppliers offering a competitive price if they don’t have a guaranteed volume and it’s also difficult to have an interesting size of swarm without a guaranteed discount or with the “you will pay whatever it’s offered” obligation.

Do you really think that on-line “swarming” can be based on the same rules of common interest and “morality” as real life “swarming”? How would you control it? Wouldn’t this control turn into a very low volume of successful “swarm buy” activities?
grumpy

July 31st, 2007 at 4:39 am

Your article does a good job very quickly of outlining the basic concept behind eSwarm but the genius is in the guts of this web site. Built into the site are three very powerful tools to give this site very powerful future traction. First, when a person supplies or joins a swarm they can notify others of the product. This ability to network the specific swarm can create a daisy chain effect between like minded people. (This may be happening with the swarm for ammo that has brought some 90 buyers together in the last 4 days). Second, you have the buyer restrictions box found on the swarm templets when you start a swarm. This allows the person who starts the swarm to interject his belief system into the swarm. (Some examples on the site I saw were swarms that required that the supplier be union organized). This second aspect of eswarm could cause major traction if interest groups such as unions, churches, etc. use eswarm as a tool to foster their beliefs and ask their memberships to purchase thru eswarm (ie in a single mass mailing by the unions you could have millions of union members checking out eswarm tomarrow). I saved the third for last because this shows where some serious traction could come to this site. The developers have thru their charity donation links vested the non profits of the world in this sites growth and well being. If you’re a non profit and a swarm is started that benefits your charity with a donation it is a no brainer to make your millions of contributors aware of the site thru their literature and e-mail lists. The concept is cool but the growth model is scary. This is not a site you should just look at quickly, this is a site that shows years of thought and needs to be carefully examined.

Grumpy
Mark

August 1st, 2007 at 5:42 am

BEWARE!!!!!

Avoid these people at all costs. I tried using them. When the swarm I was part of did not get the product, they proceeded to email me over 1000 times to tell me that the swarm had failed. Actually they are still emailing me now.

I’ve emailed them multiple times to no avail.
Alaska Miller

August 1st, 2007 at 10:36 am

You people are retarded. This is nothing but a massive email spamming tool.

People don’t BUY based on “swarming.” That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If I want a chocolate bar, I buy a chocolate bar. 10 cents isn’t going to sway me. If I’m buying a TV, I want the best price possible and I have a TOLERANCE for how long this transaction must occur. I’m not waiting for a month before there’s enough of a storm to buy something. With product differentiation there’s going to be so much trouble gathering up momentum for this. I want a Sony but everyone else wants a Panasonic, boohoo.

This also doesn’t work for products that are decentralized. Retailers won’t want to ship out fridges or washers or CARS to multiple points for razor thin or zero margins. There’s no incentive!

In fact, you idiots must have never worked in a small retailer store. I spent two years doing online retailing, specifically IT products in Silicon Valley. Let me tell you first off what we use to compete: NOT PRICE. Yeah, price is never configured into our mode of thought BECAUSE IT DOESN’T WORK OUT. We don’t have the luxury of getting into protracted price wars. We don’t have the luxury of stocking insane amount of products. We don’t have the luxury of saying “hmm, let’s get some losses in hopes of people returning for another buy” because quite simply we lack the money, time, and resources to do that. Rather we concentrated on service. And service costs money people. Services makes it so that someone has to be at the phone. At the store. At the warehouse. With software to manage all this and figure out what’s wrong and how to proceed.

God you people will rah rah cheer for anything stupid as long as it sounds alright on paper. Then the next best thing is you stupid idiots just keep saying “oh good luck here’s my best” as if that’s going to be suddenly make bottom lines appear magically.

Ugh.
Franz Gustav

August 1st, 2007 at 12:04 pm

Sounds like an email glitch to me. There doesn’t seem much reason to spam you about a swarm not getting supplied. Most spammers will spam you trying to sell you something.
Nad

August 3rd, 2007 at 8:46 am

Alaska Miller, you are a retard! Stop thinking everyone thinks like you. Sure the whole groupbuy thing might not be the best idea in some fields. But it works damn well in some. I browse a couple of car-related forums, BMW specifically. There many group buy going on all the time on every forum. The group buy is started by the manufacturer itself or someone who has a contact at a supplier. They have the prices already defined for each range of buyers (0-10, 10-25, 25-50, …) and they set a certain number of days or weeks to let people join the group buy. At the end of the group buy period, you have a certain delay to pay. You don’t pay you’re out.

And it works. It’s a mess to organize because you have to keep track of who joined, how many joined, sending invoices, tracking payments, printing shipping labels, … if there was a website or a vBulletin or phpBB widget that could help them organise the group buy, I’m sure they would jump on it.

I have personnaly participated in group buys and I have also organized one myself. I’m thinking about developping my own group buy app and releasing it for the forums community.
Myke G.

August 9th, 2007 at 7:29 am

Were this group of “swarmists” to actually grow (and I’m talking) about into the 100’s of Thousands swarm-ing about here-and-there in a few different industries, OF COURSE it could work. I’m a member of a group-buyers company and absolutely LOVE the deals I get. Of course they’re already set up however this could work just the same, and perhaps even better in the long-run. IMHO that is.
bbadboy

August 13th, 2007 at 7:08 am

It could work, but eSwarm isn’t going to be the one. 3% is far too much to charge a seller when other sites like SwarmBuy.com don’t charge anything. In the same way that market forces could cause swarms to work, they will also cause the cheapest source to work.
codyzak

August 16th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

I left a critique of a eswarm deal. my advice was taken, but my post was deleted. See ya never eswarm.
centavo

August 20th, 2007 at 10:48 am

This is years of thought????? Looks more like a late night party whose esoteric dicussions were taken to far.