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Top1. Introduction
E-commerce has emerged since the late 1990’s. It continues to grow at a fast pace and becomes the dominant shopping means for most shoppers today. The forms of e-commerce vary, including B2B, B2C, and C2C. Each platform can be further classified into many sub-categories based on the variations of different parameters. Online Group Buying (OGB) is one of such sub-category. It is a mechanism where shoppers of similar products form online communities and use the power of their ordering quantity to negotiate prices with sellers. These groups of shoppers can also potentially influence the manufacturers and retailers on policies, product characteristics, and services. Similar to other e-commerce websites, many OGB sites started in the later part of 1990’s, for example, MobShop and Mercata. Many such sites, however, ceased to exist only several years after their inception, due to reasons such as fast expansion (cash burning rate), improper operation, and fierce competitiveness. But they were quickly replaced by many more with modified business operations, mainly because of the sound concept of the fundamental group buying idea.
The concept of group buying or quantity discount is not at all new to e-Commerce. In fact, many large wholesale stores such as Costco and BJ’s operate exactly under this principle. It can also be commonly seen that certain benefits (free shipping, extra peripherals for free, etc.) applied to transactions when the order exceeds a threshold, either in quantity or total dollar amount, on many popular e-Commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay. Most sellers are eager to sell their products in large bulk in return for a little cheaper price. That is the reason why after many OGB sites closed operation, more similar sites emerged. Also, another key direct benefit that most sellers receive from OGB channels is the comments and feedback provided. Unlike traditional channels where these comments and feedback mostly come from individual buyers, they are now integrated from many consumers and can be viewed as consensus group opinions.
Online group buying remains a relatively under-researched area despite being existed for many years. Many aspects of this phenomenon deserve more investigation. Using a survey study, this research attempts to gain more insights on group buying communities, their activities, and culture within these communities. Specifically, our study is based on a major group buying community web site in Taiwan, i.e. ihergo.com. It is the largest group buying website in Taiwan and has been existed for more than 14 years. As of April 2021, it has more than 1.25 million total registered members. Taiwan’s e-Commerce revenues had reached NT$4.34 trillion (≈ US$ 144 billion) in 2019 (http://www.iii.org.tw/), Taiwan’s e-Commerce total transaction amount is expected to grow between 10% and 15% annually from 2017-2022. This represents about 4.8% of its overall retailing market. Annual group buying size is about NT$ 12 billion (≈ US$ 400 million), which is a small portion of the overall e-commerce. Obviously, there is still much room for consumers to resort to the online venue for their shopping needs in Taiwan. This work sheds lights with businesses on how to seize these market opportunities.