Closed shopping community
A closed shopping community , also known as a shopping club or private shopping club , is a commercial online community, usually with a special range of products , which can only be accessed through a one-time registration, invitation, club key and the like. Since the goods offered via the operator websites mainly come from remaining stock , excess or returned quantities or from previous seasons and are usually sold at lower prices, the concept usually corresponds to stationary factory sales .
Essence
Members of such a closed shopping community receive a bonus for every new member or their first order . This bonus takes the form of bonus points, which can later be exchanged for items, or in the form of shopping vouchers .
On the hunt for points and other personal perks, members recruit massive numbers of new members in some cases. This promotes the spread of unwanted e-mails and so-called spam threads in web forums according to the snowball principle.
In these closed shopping communities, items are usually offered at low discount prices. In order to increase the pressure on the members, an offer is usually only valid for a specific, deliberately short period of time. Often orders are generated first before the goods are then ordered from the manufacturer , which explains the longer delivery times . Sometimes these can take three weeks or more.
With regard to the authenticity of so-called branded articles, the delivery time and the guarantee of the articles, the buyer relies on the shopping community in good faith . Nevertheless, the legal provisions for online trading also apply here .
Come up
The first closed online communities include vente-privee.com , founded in France in 2001 , de.buyvip.com, which started in Germany in spring 2007, Brands4Friends .de, which opened in September 2007, and private-outlet.de in November 2007 and limango.de, which opened in December 2007. Soon afterwards, other websites followed the successful examples such as label-park.de (January 2008), vip-trends.de (March 2008), pauldirekt.de (November 2008), clubsale.de (January 2009) and lockerz.com ( March 2009), to name a few.
Lockerz.com made a negative name for itself in 2009 with so-called spam threads in web forums .
Who is who
In November 2008 the publishing house Gruner & Jahr entered this form of business with buyvip.com, which according to its own information should have 3 million members.
In January 2009 Otto Group bought limango.de with 150,000 registered members. In 2013 limango.de already had 4,000,000 members.
At the beginning of 2011, eBay took over the German shopping club brands4friends for the equivalent of 150 million euros. Brands4Friends claims to be one of the largest shopping clubs on the German market with 8 million registered customers. Amazon had previously secured the buyvip.com shopping club for the equivalent of 70 million euros, but it was closed in May 2017.
In the meantime, the Vente-Privee shopping club from Paris has also found its way to Germany and offers products (mainly clothing). With Westwing Home & Living , a shopping club for furniture and home accessories started in summer 2011, the company is now active in 10 countries and has over 9 million members (as of November 2013). There are also closed shopping clubs in the luxury food sector: With Wine in Black, a start-up is active in the wine sector.
Commerce subscription
The closed shopping community should not be confused with Abo Commerce . The user must also register with this in order to be able to place an order, and the range changes regularly (usually monthly). However, customer acquisition is less aggressive and not rewarded.
Examples of Abo Commerce are Glossybox, Shoedazzle (USA) and Stylistpick (Great Britain).
criticism
The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center tested eight of the closed shopping communities at the end of June 2009 and criticized the hunt for bargains as time-consuming and often unsuccessful . Nevertheless, 20 out of 24 test offers were cheaper than in online retail.
In a contribution by WDR 2 from August 20, 2009, the due date of the shipping costs for each individual order is objected to, even if there are multiple orders of one day. Daily or weekly notifications via SMS or e-mail about current sales promotions would cause many electronic mailboxes to overflow.
In a test by Computer Bild 2009, the login data of four out of eight test candidates was transmitted unencrypted, thus enabling data spies to fraudulent Internet use. WDR2 and the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center also share this accusation.
forecast
According to the Internet market researcher Innofact 2008, closed shopping communities did not yet play a significant role in 2008, but they are seen as a potential threat to traditional online trade .
See also
literature
- Ebersbach, Anja, Markus Glaser, Richard Heigl: Social Web , UTB, 3065. Konstanz, UVK-Verl.-Ges, 2008
- Kau, Christian: Trust protection mechanisms on the Internet, especially in e-commerce. Karlsruhe, Univ.-Verl. Karlsruhe, 2005
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dilßner, Jacob: Virales Marketing at its best: Lockerz.com , www.readers-edition.de ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Decision of the administrator to block the thread on www.computerbase.de and a corresponding Google query
- ↑ a b Eicher, David: Trend: Shopping Clubs from August 5, 2007 ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e online shopping clubs from August 20, 2012
- ↑ Press release of March 3, 2008 - accessed December 9, 2009
- ↑ a b Hüsing, Alexander: Gruner + Jahr joins BuyVIP from July 19, 2007
- ^ Emmerich, Sebastian: For members only: The shopping community brands4friends.de
- ↑ Press release PrivateOutlet - French on the German market of October 30, 2007, accessed on December 9, 2009
- ↑ Business magazine Der Handel, January 23, 2009 - accessed December 9, 2009
- ↑ Company press release New shopping community for boardsports and lifestyle from June 4, 2008 accessed on December 9, 2009
- ↑ Press release from vip-trends.de of March 12, 2008
- ↑ Press release on the start of pauldirekt.de from November 26, 2008
- ↑ Press release from clubsale.de accessed on December 9, 2009
- ↑ dpa announcement of January 23, 2009 retrieved on December 9, 2009 ( Memento of the original of April 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Amazon takes over the BuyVIP shopping club
- ↑ buyvip.com: Amazon BuyVIP was discontinued on May 31, 2017.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Wine in Black - Company Profile - Gründerszene , accessed on May 21, 2019
- ↑ Press release of the consumer advice center NRW Time-consuming bargain hunt from June 29, 2009 ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ COMPUTER BILD: Test: New shopping clubs as price breakers from April 2009, accessed on December 10, 2009
- ↑ Hüsing, Alexander: Shopping clubs are not yet a threat to traditional web retail
