团购优惠:便宜所付出的代价

When looking at these group-buying websites, consumers may find various restaurant coupons with high discounts. For example, something sold for 31 yuan at popular fast-food restaurant Subway might go for 16 on one of these sites. This particular coupon has attracted more than 10,000 purchases. Another Korean dish package coupon worth about 200 yuan is sold at 100 yuan, and more than 20,000 consumers have taken advantage of it.

However, these are not the cheapest deals. Some restaurant coupons even sell at 15 percent of the original prices. Besides fast-food restaurants and small eateries, some high-end restaurants have also joined these group-buying websites.

Shi Wei, marketing director at a restaurant in Beijing says they believe group-buying is a perfect way to attract more customers.

However, when more coupons from different restaurants are available on the websites, consumers say problems begin to crop up.

"The size of the dishes has diminished, and the service has become substandard."

"The dishes we got at the restaurant were totally different from what we saw on the website. For instance, when I purchased a hotpot package coupon through a group buying website, I saw different categories of vegetables included in the package, but when I ate at the restaurant, all I got was Chinese cabbage."

Consumers are usually attracted by group deals due to the lower prices for quality food and products. But poor quality and substandard service have caused many consumers to cast doubt on group-buying as well as the restaurants.

That is the reason many restaurants are staying away from these sites. Marketing director of a western style restaurant in Beijing Hang Hai explains.

"With higher costs for raw materials, almost no profit can be made out of group-buying websites. We don't use group buying as we don't want our brand devalued among customers due to these problems brought by these sites."

With these problems, many people are starting to ask if group-buying is a good way to promote these restaurants, but many restaurants are still seeking a better way to make use of group purchases.

Jiang Junxian, head of the Beijing Cuisine Association tells us his opinion.

"The biggest advantage to group-buying is the promotional effects. Through this method, restaurants will be widely known by consumers, thus increasing sales. However, once restaurants gain recognition from consumers, I suggest the restaurants give up the group-coupon gimmick."

Jiang Junxian adds that, for restaurants at least, using group-buying as a long-term strategy will impede development and make the restaurant ultimately less competitive.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.