Group buying in South Africa – a year later

The group buying web concept has been in action in South Africa for well over a year now. I still remember when Twangoo launched around the time of the 2010 World Cup and after a few successful months they became part of the mighty Groupon. After that development, we experienced a bit of a group buying ‘boom’ in South Africa, with new companies starting up left, right and centre. Way too many of them – in my humble opinion.

It hasn’t been all rosy for the group buying market. 2011 has already seen Dealio.co.za go under and the latest news is that one of the bigger sites Dealify.com, is also closing down soon. I must admit that I didn’t know much about Dealio but I’m surprised by the news of Dealify’s pending closure. I considered Dealify to be one of the bigger contenders in the market and they certainly stood out from the rest in terms of advertising – you’d recognise their ‘That’s unbelievable’ ads on TV with the ‘Merman’ and ‘Werewolf’ characters. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the others in 2012.

At the end of the day, I think that the group buying game is a difficult one. There are just too many similar sites out there. Personally, I subscribe to Groupon, UbuntuDeal and CitySlicker but honestly, I really don’t want any more deal notification emails flooding my mailbox in the morning. I also haven’t bought a deal for a while now, as the novelty has kind of worn off. I wonder if you feel the same?

How has your experience been with group buying so far? Feel free to post a comment and share your views.

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