eBay last week launched an online group gift buying service designed
to make it easier for consumers to collectively purchase gifts. The application,
said the auction house, aims to "relieve costs during tough economic times
and help groups crowdsource excellent gift ideas."
According to a statement from eBay, any item on its website can be purchased this way through groupgifts.eBay.com rather than by a typical individual bid. Extended family members or friends can be invited to help purchase a gift through Facebook or e-mail. Those looking to join would choose an amount to contribute and pay using either PayPal or a credit card. A personal note from each can be added.
Beyond cost savings for individuals and efficiencies in gathering gift-givers, eBay Group Gifts "is a lot of fun" and capitalizes on emerging social media tools, the company said. Ideal opportunities were said to be graduation presents, holiday presents, and any other typical registry events calling for group buying.
"eBay Group Gifts was designed to address a real world need for people who want to join together to give a bigger and better gift for someone they care about," said Amit Menipaz, who led the project at eBay, in the statement.
Speaking to USA Today, Sucharita Mulpuru, vice president for Forrester Research, doesn't think the tool will gain "any mass adoption."
"To make this work, you need to really promote it, and you need to change consumer habits around how they may be doing group-gifting," said Ms. Mulpuru. "I'm not convinced the market is so huge that it will change anyone's habits."
eBay North America vice president Christopher Payne told USA Today, "eBay Group Gifts lets you do in three minutes what is otherwise a time-consuming and painful process that can take weeks to complete."
Discussion Questions: What do you think of the opportunity to drive group buying via social media tools? Are consumers ready for group buying online? How would you rate groupgifts.eBay.com?