Ideas for organizing group buys? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mayor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2019, 11:00:29 am
content: Hi,I've searched for an answer to this and have come up short. I can't think of a better place than EEVBlog to organize a group buy for a somewhat exotic part, but that hasn't worked out (in the buy/want/sell section).Basically, I'm looking for opinions on a way to buy larger volumes for "rarer" parts. In this instance, it's a balun for a TI wireless chip (10x cheaper when buying 1500 units!) and TI's e2e site seems inappropriate for that. I am sure there are enough hobbyists/home gamers out there to make it work, but not sure how to unite them :-) Thanks for advice.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2019, 01:31:30 pm
content: In this particular case, the rather exotic part seems to be the main challenge. How many hobbyists or gamers (?) will roll their own wireless circuit, rather than rely on an available piggyback module?In general, I think eevblog is not a bad place to try and organize a group buy. But I can only see it succeed if(a) the part/device is sufficiently "mainstream" to get enough people interested, and(b) the financial outlay is limited. If it's an expensive piece of equipment or a large batch of expensive parts, participants will not be inclined to pre-pay, and the organizer will not want to take the risk and advance the money for the complete order.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2019, 04:41:04 pm
content: Many things are 10x cheaper when you buy 1500 of them.The question is how much money does that actually mean to a DIY hobbyist?Are you saying that they are only $1 in quantity and $10 by the each?What difference does $9 make to somebody making one or two at home?And are there even 1500 people out there who want one (or two).I recall in the past there were group purchase activities online.But they probably suffer from all of these issues.Maybe we should start a discussion about what people would like to buy this way.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2019, 05:15:20 pm
content: You also have to factor in the extra shipping and packaging cost. Whoever organise the group buy will have to spend quite some time packaging >1500 packages and buy a lot of stamps.If you are part of a large hacker space it might make sense to buy certain parts in bulk and sell with no profit to the members (or with a small profit to keep the place running, buy new equipment, etc.)

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2019, 09:59:20 pm
content: The idea is quite good if used widely, someplace ( a site ) where everybody informs their needs and if the possible goal to have a big deal when some item achieved the goal, due to many interested people, the system will inform everybody. The payment hold is something that needs discussion, because if only one guy fails the full group will fail, But the idea is something that I 'm interested

author: mayor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2019, 11:36:47 am
content: Thanks for the feedback guys, that's pretty well-aligned with what I thought. For reference, the balun I mentioned is $4USD individually and 0.37$ in quantity. Based on response so far, I guess it's a little too exotic!

author: Arant
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 02, 2019, 11:48:13 am
content: Sadly, something like that seems like it would be a nightmare to organize. You might as well get into business on your own and start reselling them and make a few bucks. haha

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2019, 12:11:00 pm
content: It's always nice to look at ways of reducing costs - but there are extra considerations which have been mentioned:1. Getting enough support for the item of interest to achieve an adequate volume to make the purchase attractive.2. The additional shipping costs to distribute the purchase to the members of the buying group3. Funds need to be collected and managed - which introduces questions of accountability and safeguards4. Somebody has to put in the time and effort to organise the group, make the purchase and then pack and ship all the individual orders.5. Then there is the potential for issues that may arise - and these can be many - that need to be dealt with. Incomplete fulfillment, wrong parts, faulty parts, damage in transit, lost parcels - just to list a few off the top of my head. These are a headache with only two parties involved, but the extra person in the middle might regret putting their hand up.A lot of these issues will be minimal if you are talking about a group of people in the same room at the same time to order, pay and receive their goods when they arrive - such as a meet up at a makerspace - but a geographically dispersed group will be at a high risk of making a lot of work for someone.Edit:Please note, I am not saying it's a bad idea - just that it would be judicious to have all the issues involved set out so that there are no surprises or regrets.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 02:34:14 am
content: I can only see this working, for parts/items where the minimum order is far more than one person needs/wants.Lets say I want something not available retail, where I need 10, but the minimum order is 100 or 1000.Also works for custom parts, or discontinued parts where the tooling still exists.Yes you could do some of this using platforms like Kickstarter, with the positives and negatives that results in.