Grup satın alma siteleri üzerinden yaşam tarzı inşası: Groupon örneği

This thesis intends to reconsider the new urban lifestyle that is shaped on the basis of service consumption, a fundamental commodity for post-fordist production. It concentrates on group buying websites, which are the channels and also the guides for offering such a mode of consumption. It analyses the example of Groupon Şehir Fırsatı, which has a leading position among such web sites, together with the services provided and discourses; hence it attempts to understand the practices and discourses prevailing for building up a new lifestyle.Consumption through group buying websites is lately characterised as a pretty new consumption industry. Consumption on these sites bears different meanings of merely buying an item. This is not at all a simple of act of consumption but also a shopping for lifestyle. Services one could describe to be deluxe penetrates through the lives of a large mass, that is, deluxe items are more easily accessible. This paper attempts to put across such a new field.In this context, we have discussed the matter under three major sections;In the first section, transformation of the capitalist system has been scrutinised in economic, social and spatial aspects. Structure of capitalism has been exposed to essential modifications as from the last quarter of the 20th century. The shift has been from the industry-based economy to a new capitalist economy that is dominated by service and financing industries. Theoreticians such as Daniel Bell, Alain Touraine and Alvin Toffler agreed that a new era different from industrial capitalism has begun. This transition, in terms of economy, means a new method of production that could be described as a transition from fordist production methods to post-fordist production methods. With this transition, style and design has come to be prominent rather than mass production items; life cycle of the products is shortened; innovation and flexibility has marked production. Upon advancement of information and communication technologies, such transformation of production also paved ground for consumption that is a denotation of lifestyles different from the consumption of standard products. Post-fordism is a mode of economy that is dominated by finance and service industries simultaneously. Total share service industry within production has increased to a substantial extent in this period. These services did not remain limited to basic services such as transportation, energy or health and education as it was the case in the industrial period; it had led up to a variety of personal services. These services contain holiday, nutrition, beauty, entertainment services that underline the lifestyle.Economic transformations correspond to flexibility in social context. Just like in production flexibility; sense of belonging to a class and factors that constitute the identity has become flexible. Self-awareness has come to be prominent; one?s endeavouring to determine his or her identity has become a production of individual efforts, which is possible by virtue of a stylish consumption pattern. Identity has become a factor that is manipulated and modified, obtained a fragile structure. In this way, strict social hierarchies have been replaced by lateral transfer. Sub-cultures and upper cultures have been intertwined, the class, as a concept have no longer remained fixed as it was in the previous years. In the light of the needs and requirements of the new economic system, a group that could be defined as new middle strata emerged. New employees of the new economy differ from the middle class and the working class by « lifestyle » factor. Members of the group that seeks to build a lifestyle rather than keeping up with a standard of living are in need of guiding mechanisms of consumption. Because the city they are living in offers a great variety of lifestyles and the most proper combinations take good efforts.By evaluating the cited transformation in a spatial aspect, economy that is not based on industry means the deindustrialization of cities. The cities that used to be a production atelier in the industrial period have converted to become a service and finance centre in the post-industrial period. With the effects of globalisation, cities have begun to compete with each other for the attention of global capital and restructured their skin as a centre for consumption and entertainment for this purpose. Big cities have already turned into a leisure and lifestyle build-up spaces that offer quite a number of alternatives to the emerging middle strata that now seek to stylish their life.In the second chapter, we designated constitution of group buying websites and their operation systems. In the light of Groupon as an example; we examined in detail the lifestyle categories offered by such websites, their rates of consumption and discourse of deals. So that, we tried to understand what is imposed on consumers in terms of lifestyle.Group buying websites reveal itself as a guideline for consumption that respond to lifestyle quests by the new emerging middle strata individuals in the city at the junction points of the aforesaid transformations wherein post-industrial service economy has come to rise. These sites that provide online sales promise to take the best of the city to the consumers and offer them personal services. Characterised as virtual service stores, the sites offer deluxe services and they call each of them `deal?. Intending to target the new emerging middle strata in particular, the sites aim at introducing the consumers to activities and experiences otherwise they could not have access to. Hence, consumers take interest in unlimited lifestyle alternatives provides in no ordinary manner and even the most regular one is smartened and endeared wisely. They offer deluxe services for the use of a large mass, intending to democratise consumption.Group buying websites contain services for beauty, health, nutrition?s, vacation, accommodation, entertainment and events, course services etc. Each of such services needs to be primarily different, extraordinary and deluxe: dining in an ethnical restaurant, going on a holiday in the Far East and attending a tango course. They do it in a way to attract attention of the consumers and employ an advertising discourse. The long wording below the deals offered explains why the consumer should buy it, how it will like it if it does not miss it out. Consumers are thus learned to build up a lifestyle wrapped by certain experiences determined by it. While doing so, examples are given from `celebrity? lifestyles as a norm. We tried to describe all these characteristics of group buying websites by referring to examples selected from Groupon.In the third chapter, we attempted to evaluate group buying websites from consumers? perspectives. We studied consumers? motivations, how they perceived these websites and what they meant for them. We evaluated their lifestyle characteristics, so we attempted to describe and understand the lifestyle of new middle strata, that is, makings of the urban identities.In this section, we classified the motivations of consumers. We divided consumers into three ideal types such as innovation seeker, rational and imitator. We examined characteristics and traits of each of them. We have also evaluated the characteristics of lifestyles derived from group buying websites. As a result, we have come to determine a lifestyle for the middle strata that is standard, borrowed and hedonist.For the furtherance of the study, we have selected Groupon Şehir Fırsatı as it has a pioneering position, and analysed it for two months one in summer and the other in winter. We set the service categories by Groupon and observed which has been consumed to what extent. We have tried to induce the consumption inclination of consumers on the basis of numerical data obtained. Moreover, we have observed the discourses below the deals offered in order to understand what kind of a lifestyle Groupon recommends. In addition to the follow-up of the site, 42 active users of these sites were interviewed on face to face basis. We have had the chance of evaluating the matter from consumers? point of view.The following are the outcomes obtained from the study:1.Group buying websites are characterised as a guideline for consumption and lifestyle. The fact that consumers check the site seven though they do not buy is a clear sign of it. Consumers plan how to make use of their spare time depending on these sites, develop new hobbies, create alternative lifestyles for themselves and make all of these as cheap as possible.2.Group buying websites provide consumers with a deal to build up a lifestyle based on their services. Consumers benefit from new experiences by purchasing a set of services. They use these sites to take little bit of everything, to become different and experience things. In other words, it is not any sort of consumption driven by needs but desires, is something that is not done or enjoyed often but sought after in order to reach what is luxurious.3.Consumers? quest for being different remains within the boundaries of similar lifestyle practices. Urban identities reunite around the same consumption practices. A single lifestyle puts forth the ideal: and it is a standard, borrowed and hedonist lifestyle.4.Consumers purchase pre-packaged and identical experiences. All stages of consumption have been envisaged and calculated in advance. Even the way consumers will feel themselves has been explained right below the deal. Consumers press a key and purchase the pre-designed experience. This is a mechanical and standard consumption.5.Deals that are purchased from group buying websites are the abridged versions of original. They offer an opportunity of `introduction? to the consumer but the consumer cannot continue it. It is because the deals are on for a shorter period than necessary. The second reason is that consumers cannot dominate the codes of behaviours thoroughly as necessitated by the consumption practices they purchase. As a matter of fact, consumers borrow lifestyle items for one time only.6.Deals that are offered for sale on group buying websites are not driven by needs but by desires. Consumers may in some cases prefer not to use coupons purchased for instantaneous desires or quit at once an event that could actually last for several sessions, which demonstrates that such consumption is a hedonist one.As a result of this study, it has been concluded that individuals have tendency towards such websites for the purposes of become distinct and different, whereas they are re-united within the boundaries of the same lifestyle. Individuals engaged in service and finance industries that have emerged from the post-industrial economy, that is, the new middle strata of the society purchase items of a standard lifestyle, such as vacation, restaurant, entertainment, physical and educational practices, hence they inevitably end up with resembling one to another. In conclusion, this thesis intends to have the modest ambition to offer a new tool to let us understand one aspect of the emerging lifestyle based on group buying websites.