Photo by Husna Miskandar on Unsplash

This startup is making group buying easier and more fun.

Have you ever gone to Costco, seen a great price on a case of shampoo, but thought to yourself, “This would be a great deal, but I don’t need that much shampoo!”

With Groop, a new startup in Mexico City, you can get the benefits of a group price even when buying a single unit. And it’s not just shampoo — on the Groop platform you can shop a variety of items — from kitchen appliances to mobile phones — and get great group discounts.

This concept of group buying has really taken off in China. There’s even a word for it: Tuán Gòu, which translates roughly as “team buying”. It’s become very popular because it’s a fun way to collaborate with others and get a great deal.

The co-founders of Groop believe that it will become very popular in Mexico as well, and they’ve built a whole digital platform around creating a fun, engaging environment for group buying. After being piloted with a website, they’ve now launched native OS and Android apps. You choose an item you want, and then share it with all of your friends in order to get the group price. For consumers, it’s a fun way to get great deals, and for brands it’s an effective new way to sell products.

In some ways, Groop is an example of something that’s already happening in ad hoc ways (via Whatsapp, for example) and creating a purpose-built platform that puts the idea on steroids. I expect that it will be very successful and that after launching in Mexico they will be able to roll it out to additional countries around the world.

Groop will be presenting at Demo Day for the 4thly Startup Accelerator on July 7th.