Group Buying Website – The current powerful business model to rule eCommerce right now! Right from the time the concept of Group buying got emerged, both buyers and merchants were highly influenced on the benefits they attain individually. Groupon has ultimately grabbed attentions as a group buying website, thereby pinching several developers to create Groupon clone scripts and software. A couple of groupon clone scripts have been released so far, among which I picked a few (the best) and have reviewed each of them in detail. Read further to get on with the reviews.
Contus
An India-based Company that full-fledgedly works on web and mobile application development. Contus has built this Groupon clone software on a well-established shopping cart that is stable and secure. The script is built on the World’s most powerful Magento platform and hence the quality of the product is better. And coming to the support, it is good. Even if the support cannot be found for certain clarifications, individuals can search over Google and get their answers via Magento forums. The best thing about Contus Groupon clone is, Magento has got more plugins than any other shopping carts.
The script also has got its own negatives. It cannot be installed straight-out-the-box since it requires ionCube to be installed formerly. Also, a minimum version of PHP 5.2 needs to be installed. Likely to Magento , the product runs slow on shared hosts and requires a dedicated host to load normally. Bugs are also be seen, but the capable team of Contus get rid of them once pinged. Otherwise, the script is too good to use with. I strongly support this script, since it has got some ultimate features and especially the Magento thing. The software is available at a price of $500 plus $400 custom home page design.
Agriya
Again an India-based company to offer groupon clone script that seems cool from the front end. The script is built on the CakePHP framework. The problem with Agriya group buying script is faced while sending coupons to everyone. The price factor varies for each individual users. If you’ve asked for an extra support or anything beyond the roof, you’ll be charged additional for that. To me, the product is neither excellent nor bad. And it is even more for the platform it is built on.
[ad name=”bnr-middle-post”]Wroupon
Wroupon is a Chinese-based company in Singapore. The groupon clone script from Wroupon is relatively cheap. Wroupon script has also got bugs in adding cities and limited payment processors. It is available at the price of $89 for lite version and $350 for the full version. In my review, Wroupon software can be relied on if and only if you are looking to have a just website for group buying.
AlstraSoft
AlstraSoft is again a China-based company that offers Groupon clone software in bearable price. While on one end the script is great from demo perspective, on the other it has got so many bugs. Adding cities in deals encrypts an ineffective system. The WYSIWYG editor doesn’t allow for plain text. It is also difficult to add cities when using a different character set. The software can be purchased at $178.
GroupScript.net
GroupScript is a Bulgaria-based company to offer groupon clone. The script looks so simple and has got limitations in technical aspects. The back end interface resembles WordPress in outlook, but as you go deep there are certain issues to be witnessed. The script is available at $400.
Couponic
Couponic is a Russian-based company owning a Groupon clone script that is built on the “Yii” framework and lives with the very features and drawbacks of Yii framework. The software casn be purchased at $200 base price in addition to the $35 for each add on. To my point, this script can be looked on, if and only if the user is familiar more with the Yii framework.
Groupon.comClone.com
This script has got buttons to help users get to the front and back ends of the site. The entire menu is organized from the left side and hence it is pretty easy to handle things. Problems arises in sending coupons, manage transactions and manage user info. The default template is available at $250, unique design at $400, multi language at $350 and customizations at $250.
Conclusion
On reviewing all the above scripts together, Contus is the Groupon clone script which I find to be absolute in one or many ways. It is the Magento platform that makes the script stable and stronger enough. The software is best in payment and ticketing support. Contus also upgrades the product very often and makes users to sense a new experience. Next to contus, I analyze Wroupon and Groupon.comClone.com to be good, as per the user reviews.
