Deals On Demand: Handsup Lets You Create Your Own Discounted Deal

Unlike the common group-buying websites in China, Handsup.cn has an interesting new spin. It is the first domestic site that allows consumers to request deals. Seeing goods or service which they want, users can create and promote their own deals, turning a local business’s customers into its biggest advocates. It will be interesting to see if it’s successful.

According to Handsup, it takes just three steps for consumers to request a deal:

1. Find an item that you’d like to buy. Other e-commerce sites like Taobao or Amazon China can be used for ideas.

2. Submit the idea along with a photo, pick a realistic discount amount, and add a deal description. Here it goes through a review process behind the scenes. If the deal is approved, you will see it in action on the site. Now you can wait for it to gain traction, or rally people to sign up for the deal by sharing it online.

3. Again behind the scenes, if enough people are interested in the idea, Handsup reps will contacts businesses with the details, and if a business approves it, the deal is on. Now you can buy it with a nice discount – such as the USB-powered speakers pictured below that come with a 35 percent discount.

The more people 'hands up' a deal, the greater the discount will become.

The advocator of the deal will get a reward of 100RMB for each deal that goes on sale, no matter if he or she buys it.

There are three levels of price for each deal (pictured above); the more people vote – or ‘hands up’ – the deal, the greater the discount could become. This is how Handsup inspires social sharing and word-of-mouth marketing in its innovative group-buying model.

This consumer-to-business (C2B) model – in contrast to the usual B2C on the likes of Meituan and Lashou – is so new in China that nobody knows whether it will be success or not. Liu Lei, one of the founders of Handsup, says that his website offers a stronger deal alternative than those normal group-buying sites, and lower prices as well.

Currently, the items on Handsup.cn range from clothing and gadgets, to food and cosmetics. Its revenue model is more traditional, though – getting a cut of the daily deals that are bought by its users.

[Source: Tech2IPO – article in Chinese]