Compared to other
countries, Italy
has never taken to coupons and organized discounts. Now, two firms, Tuangon.it
and Citydeal, are betting on the success of an Italian online collective buying
sector, and they expect it to grow both in Italy and abroad.
Tuangon.it is
already in operation in Italy,
and the German firm Citydeal has launched a new online collective buying
initiative in Rome and Milan, which has already shown signs of
success.
Citydeal offers
discounted tickets to the cinema, the theatre, concerts, restaurants and the
like. Once a minimum number of online customers sign up for a discounted
service, the sites negotiate discounted prices with firms, and using the
promise of a minimum number of customers, these firms get the best discounts.
However, if not enough people sign up, then the deal is cancelled, and
customers are not charged. For this reason, it is in a customer’s best interest
to spread the word on the deals offered to make sure they get the discount.
Such is the power of collective buying.
Tuangon and
Citydeal are based on the American firm Groupon, which opened in 2009 and now
has more than one million customers in over 50 U.S. cities. Following its
inaugural deal in Rome and Milan,
through which 4,500 customers purchased cinema tickets for one euro each,
Citydeal plans to offer collective buying in Turin,
Genoa, Bologna, Padua, Naples, Florence, and the Adriatic
coast by this summer.
Deals range from a
half-price sushi dinners to 40 percent discounts for spa treatments. Although
Citydeal already has over 4,000 fans on Facebook, Lorenzo Manes, Citydeal
manager for Italy, admits
‘With respect to Spain, here
[in Italy]
the service has taken a while to take off. Italians are much more sceptical of
e-commerce.’ Nonetheless, he is confident that Italian customers will
eventually trust the service and the deals it offers.
