It looks like China is bucking the online trend for social networks. Or at least using them in a different way from other marketplaces. Because in China, members of web communities are being encouraged to group together to obtain cheaper prices on goods and services. It works something like this...
Someone in one part of a city of neighbourhood uses the website to plan a mass (mob) gathering at a certain store and time of people who want to buy, say, a washing machine. By sheer weight of numbers they try and obtain heavy discounts. Seller and buyer are happy (buyer gets bargain and seller moves that stock right out of the store).
If this all sounds familiar to those of you with longer memories - it is. Who remembers letsbuyit.com? This worked on the same proposition but was too far ahead of its time (not enough internet penetration, lack of social networks etc). So is this an idea whose time has come or will it only happen in places like China, where behaviour like this is culturally more acceptable?
What opportunities will this give to potential students approaching institutions for admissions? And how could educational institutions use this phenomenon to help existing students?
Comments (3)
Are you suggesting that students may decide to group together in order to negotiate lower fees? In my opinion this is unlikely to happen, because the fee structure for an UG or PG course is necessarily different from that of a FMCG. I cannot see how a long term admissions policy is sustainable if this practise was adopted by UK (or other)institutions.
Posted by katherine | July 5, 2007 1:45 PM
Posted on July 5, 2007 13:45
Thanks Katherine,
I take your point about the difference between buying a fridge and investing in an education - and the leeway the "seller" has to discount in either case, but the point I'm trying to make in this (and other) posts, is that the channel allows this kind of transparency to take place. By this I mean that all buyers can see the price of not only your services but of all similar services in a marketplace, quickly and accurately. This is seen in aggregator sites like moneyadvisor, tripadvisor etc
I ask again - how would an institution respond to one of their competitors discounting in this way?
Posted by wesley | July 5, 2007 1:53 PM
Posted on July 5, 2007 13:53
Wesley - whilst still not sure that this would be an imminent (sp?) problem, I take your point that this is something that may increase in the future. I do think however that we as institutional reps should see whether we can take this development and use it for the benefit of our students (or alumni). There are lots of deals with insurance, mobile phone contracts etc that could be done with lots less effort and more impact.
Posted by katherine | July 5, 2007 6:47 PM
Posted on July 5, 2007 18:47