Forget cutting coupons or haggling with deranged basement dwellers on eBay. Collective buying is the best way to get deep discounts on everything from clothes to health clubs to restaurants. Sites like
BuyWithMe.com and
Groupon.com entice web-goers to jump on the sales bandwagon; when enough people sign up for a given discount, it gets approved. In this way, both the business and the customer are guaranteed a solid return.
ConsumerUnited.com, meanwhile, helps shoppers band together to negotiate better deals on everything from utilities to health insurance. Taking the egalitarian beauty of sites like Yelp one step further, these communal buying systems are thriving. We may never shop solo again.
