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Coronavirus: Singaporeans eye savings with bulk-shopping groups on WhatsApp, Telegram
- Tens of thousands of Singapore residents have joined group-buying online communities since the start of the pandemic
- While most groups focus on food, some larger group-buy networks offer household items such as cleaning supplies
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Every week, Singapore health care worker Toh Lixin offers about 4,000 of her neighbours the chance to get discounts on items such as fruit tarts, bottled coffee and baby lobsters.
Toh, 26, is the organiser of an informal network of consumers who use Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram to organise group purchases. She started the group last October and usually gets around 50 weekly orders.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Singaporeans like her have launched at least 20 group-buying communities.
Residents in Bukit Panjang, a neighbourhood in the northwestern part of the island, can have baby lobsters delivered for just S$24 (US$17.50), which can be half of what restaurants downtown charge. While most groups focus on food, some larger group-buy networks offer household items such as cleaning supplies.
Hosts, the local residents in charge of the groups, negotiate with businesses on prices and customers collect the items, often from the hosts’ homes.
Groups can whittle down delivery fees, which initially can be as high as S$18, to only a few cents per customer, and hosts can negotiate discounts as high as 30 per cent. Toh charges a S$2 administrative fee per order, and customers pay the hosts via mobile banking.
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