Who wants a team buying event near home?

If you put your hand up, I can’t see it, so instead of doing that, put your hand on the keyboard and write in the comments form at the end of this post where you’d like a team buying event to be organised. Specify the location and the shop (and the date if you are able).

This doesn’t mean an event will be organised where you are, but it does mean registering your interest will increase the likelihood of getting an event near home sooner.

UPDATE: The competition has now finished. StoreMob contestant Alastair Ferguson was first to be picked out of the virtual hat and answer the question “What is a team buying event?” with the correct answer “When a group of shoppers go into a shop or car showroom and negotiate together to get a large discount on their individual purchases”. Congratulations Alastair! I hope you get something nice with your voucher!

Just answer the simple question below and fill in your details to enter the competition. There will be one winner chosen at random after the competition finishes.

Competition entrants can choose to subscribe to the StoreMob newsletter. The newsletter is short and to the point, yet packed full of all the news you could want on team buying and StoreMob (and you can unsubscribe any time).

Competition Rules:
1. The competition will close at 9pm Thursday 5th April 2007
2. Entry to the competition is restricted to one entry per person please.
3. Multiple entries will be disqualified.
4. Excessive multiple entries from the same email account pertaining to be representative of friends and family will also be disqualified at the judges discretion.
5. No automated entries or third party are permitted!
6. Competition is open to UK residents
7. Prizes can only be sent to a valid email address
8. Winner will be chosen at random, by computer, from all correct and valid entries to the competition
9. Winner will be contacted via email and will have their name displayed on website.
10. StoreMob.com is compliant with the data protection act. Our policy is such that we will not pass on your details to any third party without your prior consent.
11. The Judges decision is final and no correspondance will be entered in to.

UPDATE: This problem is now fixed! Please ignore the rest of the post - thanks!

I’m sorry to report that the message board is experiencing a minor technical issue where the links on the board home page aren’t right. They should be fixed in the next few hours.

You can still register and post threads, but you will have to use these links to access the forums:
General chat http://storemob.com/board/general-chat/
Store mob events http://storemob.com/board/store-mob-events/

For StoreMob to save people money at team buying events it will need its user numbers to reach the tipping point.

Ideally the number of StoreMob users will end up being enough so that team buying organisers (anyone can be an organiser btw, you just need to take a minute to register on the message board) can post team buying events for their local area and know that they will receive a good response from nearby StoreMob users.

So the problem I’m asking for your help to solve is how can a team buying community be built quickly? How would you promote StoreMob? How would you publicise the idea of team buying? Send ideas using the comments form below please (all comments will be read and responded to!).

The ideas can be as sensible or crazy as you like - from advertising in Yellow Pages to advertising in space - let me have it! Thanks in advance - Eliot.

(Finally, a quick personal note…you are seeing this web site and its community in its infancy; today is StoreMob’s 0th birthday (we are zero!), but readers of this blog can take simple actions now that will help form the StoreMob community into something that’ll save a lot of people a lot of money. To start helping, all you have to do, assuming you feel like being nice to StoreMob on its birthday, is tell a friend or colleague about team buying and point them in the direction of StoreMob.com).

If there are a number of days you are happy to organise a store mob event for, feel free to add a post to the board for every day to increase the chances of getting a good response. If you get people joining the store mob on different days, don’t worry, I’ll contact them to see if they can make your preferred day instead.

In these early days, I’m worried team buying organisers will quickly become unhappy if their events are getting low numbers of responses.

If this ends up being you, then thank you so much for joining in and please don’t give up on us. If you absolutely feel you don’t want to spend any more time posting events and browsing the boards, then please contact me telling me so and I’ll email you when (fingers crossed) StoreMob has reached its tipping point (there is a post later today about the tipping point).