Buying Groups

eCommerce Group Ordering for Buying Groups

Published August 31, 2022  |  5 min read

Group ordering can be an advantageous feature to add to your buying group platform that will draw in more prospects.

Group ordering has two major benefits, one being that a good group ordering feature will make it easier for you to retain customers, and the other being that these buying groups will likely bulk order from you.

Let’s dive into the aspects of group ordering for buying groups, other benefits, and what you’re missing out on if you don’t have the feature included on your buying group platform.

Who Uses Group Ordering in Buying Group eCommerce?

Buying groups of all shapes and sizes use group ordering to increase buying power and get products at a discount. Though this means you’ll be offering products at a discounted price to buying groups, you’ll also get a lot more business.

As an example, take a group of small to mid-sized businesses who all need office supplies. They band together and form a buying group, and then go to purchase from your buying group platform to get a large quantity of said office supplies. You can offer competitive prices, which will definitely get them interested—but what will get them to actually complete an order is having an easy ordering process where group ordering is heavily considered in the design.

That’s why you want to carefully consider your group ordering feature and processes on your platform. Make the process smooth and they’ll be a lot more likely to come back for another order.

Your Buying Groups Site Without Group Ordering

While price is certainly a deciding factor that lures people and businesses to eCommerce websites, the features it offers can be just as enticing. Group ordering can provide a steady stream of revenue for you, and the buying group will guide new businesses to your site as soon as they join the group.

If you don’t open yourself up to group orders, you’re automatically excluding swaths of businesses that order exclusively through their buying group. After all, if the buying group gets them a better price and customized service, why would they go anywhere else?

The Benefits of Preparing for Buying Groups

The benefits of a group buying platform are many. Once you and the buying group’s negotiator settle on a price for tiers of sales, the selling process is fairly hands-off as the orders come to you. Here are some of the most common features and advantages you could realize by implementing a group buying function tailored to your needs.

  • Discounts Don’t Kick in Immediately – By withholding the discount price until sales reach a certain point, group ordering entices the entire group to order more. The reach goal to get it to kick in can be a dollar amount, number of units ordered, or filling a complete shipping container coming from overseas.
  • Give Members Notification Options – Members of the buying group can decide how they want to be informed about sales. They can get texts or emails, or they might choose to be notified by your store’s custom mobile app. They can also decide when they want to get the notification, such as once a week, in real-time, or when the goal of an item is close to being met.
  • The Buyer’s Group Admin Can Help You – The buying group’s admin can send out sale blasts to let its members know when there is a good buy on particular products. Members who might not have considered certain products might bite if they see just how low your price has gotten.
  • Add New Members with Ease – Buying group admins can continuously add new members to the group, getting you new customers without you doing any of the leg work.
  • Keep Orders Private – Members of the buying group will be informed ahead of time about who can see their orders; this is usually limited to the buying group’s admin. Individual businesses can rest assured knowing that their competition in this same buying group doesn’t know what items they are purchasing.
  • Staples Provide Perpetual Sales – To prove how useful the buying group can be, the group’s admin will often want to offer the items most needed by the group. This can give you a perpetual sales channel and help you better plan for inventory.
  • Deadlines Can Easily Be Altered – Deadlines can be set based on your negotiations with the group’s admin. You may know when you’ll have everything in stock, and they may have a good idea of just how long group members will wait before buying somewhere else.
  • Memberships and Subscriptions – What you’re selling to buying groups doesn’t have to be physical items. Clarity has created buying group-friendly portals and eCommerce platforms for clients selling memberships and subscriptions.

Split Payments, Split Shipping

The buying group admin will often be your primary point of contact with the group, so make sure you provide as much value as possible.

Split Payments

You can split invoices so they don’t have to. Each group member that’s part of the purchase can be billed at your discretion or by the admin.

Split Shipping

Products purchased by a buying group seldom go to the same place. Once all orders are in, shipping labels can be automatically printed for each purchaser from the group.

Experienced Buying Group Developers

We’ve detailed some of the most common uses for group buying on an eCommerce platform, but that doesn’t mean you should be limited by what you see. Implementing a robust and flexible solution to your ERP, CRM, or other back-office software can take many forms, all dependent on the current—and future—needs of your business.

We’d love to hear what your ambitions are for buying groups and how you can one-up your competition with the most user-friendly options available (for both you and your customers). Clarity has provided many of our clients with the latest buying group solutions, and we’re ready to demo what we can do for you. Contact us for a free discovery session with a detailed business plan you can take with you...whether you end up working with us or not.

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Stephen Beer is a Content Writer at Clarity Ventures and has written about various tech industries for nearly a decade. He is determined to demystify HIPAA, integration, enterpise SEO, and eCommerce with easy-to-read, easy-to-understand articles to help businesses make the best decisions.