I'm not sure I see the business opportunity here. For one, the Groupon business model has been universally panned here on HN. Furthermore, the grocery business is a notoriously low margin business (both for the stores and the brands). Even for the higher margin items in a grocery store, very few items are really unique. Most products in the grocery store compete either on branding or on price. Since group buying appeals to the price conscious consumers, the are unlikely to remain loyal when they have to buy your product at normal price.
Finally, coupons for items you buy in the grocery store are wide spread and been around for decades. One of the revolutions of Groupon was being a coupon distribution channel to get coupons to places you normally wouldn't.
I am currently part of a scheme to buy groceries wholesale with 38 people. I eat for a week for $30. We are expanding, it is all voluntary. There is a potential here for a startup that simply wants to connect people to partake in such a scheme. I have found people knowing about it is sufficient for participation.
At the moment it is organized over an e-list, but there is definitely potential for it to be organized using a database and web front end. At the moment, people in the scheme know at least 2 other people, and it works on solidarity and trust. It requires participation from everybody, but like I said above, this participation is less overall work than if everybody went and bought their groceries themselves.
Every monday 2 people in the scheme drive to the wholesale markets at 6am, buy from a list (with requests from previous week), and return by 8am with the vegetables,fruit and grains in a central location. The material is then divided up into boxes based on size. Everybody gets the same stuff. Since there is variety, there is little waste.
That is a brilliant idea. How do you decide where to buy from and what brands to buy? How do you split the payments? How do you distribute the groceries?
We buy from the wholesale fruit and vegetable market in our area. Being in the scheme means once every few weeks you have to go to the wholesale markets at 6am and buy from a list. Then it is bought to a central location and distributed into boxes that people come to pick up. It actually takes less time then everybody doing their own shopping.
As for people getting what they want, people can put in requests for certain grains/fruits/vegetables. But most people don't mind what comes anymore, since we are no longer penny pinching, a huge variety of stuff comes with every delivery sufficient to make a wide variety of meals. Where I live, everybody does their own cooking, which I hear is different to North America. (I live in Sydney, groceries are actually more expensive here than the US and $30 AU > $30 US, so don't think this won't work where you live.)
Also, when I say I eat for a week for $30, that is not entirely correct. I live with 4 other people. We all eat for a week for $30.
So now I buy the nice Bourbon.
If anybody lives around Surry Hills, Sydney and is so inclined, message me and you can join. I have been thinking about how to expand it with minimum effort. It'd be really interesting to have some hackers involved.
The best way to save money on your groceries is to write a list before you go and then only buy from that list. My wife and I plan our meals for the week, write the list of what ingredients we need and then we only buy what's on the list.
I will only go off-list if there are items on offer which I would normally buy anyway, but it makes sense to do. In the UK, we have plenty of 'Buy one, get one free' or '3 for 2' offers. So for example if toilet roll, sauces, pasta or rice have a good offer on, I will buy them, saves a bit of money and saves buying next time.
Write a list and only buy the list. It will save time and money
I can't see the deal without subscribing (and it's not available in my country, so I won't subscribe to wreck their data purity) but from the price described, I'm assuming it's one product?
I read (http://m.news.com.au/ITNewsTopStories/pg/0/fi792074.htm) that a major retailer here in Australia was investing in their own online business based predominantly around bulk purchases of non-perishables (soap, detergent, toothpaste, etc). However now visiting what I think is the site in question (http://www.harveynormanbigbuys.com.au) shows too many options and a lot of junk.
I still think a site doing only household non-perishables at a significant discount would fare well.
Super-duper smart idea. Who's going to go to the supermarket for just a $3 tub of yogurt? Supermarkets use loss leaders to get customers in the door all the time. This gives them better reach and awesome analytics.
Well, that, and they come to me in a beautiful way. The grocery weekly is alright, but it places a lot of the burden on me - so many choices, and prices, I have no idea what the real "good deal" is.
One of the ingenius parts of this approach is that I don't have to choose. Every day it rocks up in my inbox, 60% of, I can make a quick decision.
That, along with integrating with the loyalty cards (just like the article said, these guys are brilliant), is going to be super attractive to busy people looking to save time and money.
I'm still not 100% sure on the point. So I get an email once a day offering me a random discount on a random product. I have to decide whether I want to buy that product. And then, when it comes time to do my weekly grocery shopping I have to remember all the products which I've already signed up for and collect 'em all.
This seems to have saved me a little bit of money at the cost of a bunch of mental effort.
edit: Mind you I've never been persuaded to use Groupon either, so maybe it's just me.
Finally, coupons for items you buy in the grocery store are wide spread and been around for decades. One of the revolutions of Groupon was being a coupon distribution channel to get coupons to places you normally wouldn't.