Tumpang (pronounced toom as in boom and pung as in rung ) presents a newconcept in online shopping. The name is taken from the Malaysian word "Tumpang"which essentially means "Pooling" as in "Car-Pooling". As the names suggests,Tumpang.Com facilitates a sales transaction by letting consumers pool theirresources and collective influence, to qualify and demand for a bulk discount.
Tumpang.Com embodies the concept of crowd clout where consumers wield far greaterpurchasing power by buying in bulk. At Tumpang, the customer truly is king, saysthe company s Senior Marketing Manager, Raymond Chuah. Retailers want to sell moreand are willing to give huge discounts for bulk purchases, he explains, and thisis where Tumpang comes in.
Users can post items for sale on Tumpang. Sellers, or Drivers in Tumpang-speak, postup items for sale offering a bulk discount for a specified quantity of that item.Other users are then allowed to Tumpang on this item to place an order. Thesebuyers, or Passengers as they are referred to in Tumpang, get to ride on this bulkand partake in the discount offered by the Driver. When the bulk order for aparticular item is fulfilled, it is then up to the Driver to ship and deliver thesaid items.
This fundamental crowd clout concept of Tumpang makes it very different from onlineauction sites such as the ever-popular eBay. While auction sites have buyerscompeting with one another to purchase an item, Tumpang compels its users tocollaborate with one another for good bargains.
Tumpang.Com is not merely a website or a webshop. Behind the colorful homepage is apowerful application that assists users in organizing their bulk sale. Fullydesigned and engineered from scratch, Tumpang's engine has the capacity to supportcomplex orders by organizing and managing the many buyers or Passengers of an item.Users can mark a buyer as having paid for the item or having taken delivery of it. ADriver of a sale item is also able to communicate with the Passengers of his itemvia SMS or email, provided within Tumpang. At the very same time, Passengers areable to confirm a booking or cancel it with just a few clicks. Private Messaging anda comment function on an item page allow users to interact with one another.
The Tumpang concept is ideal not just for tangible products but also for servicesand events such as group holiday bookings, fishing trips, bowling outings and more.
From a technology standpoint, Tumpang is certainly up there with the latestapplications on the web today. Powered by PHP 5 and MYSQL 5, most of its processesare run on the databases side using stored procedures. On the front end, Tumpang isdesigned very differently from most e-commerce websites being crafted entirely on aCSS architecture. This will enable a better user experience and will cater forfuture expansions. There will soon be an Application Programming Interface (API) inthe near future for developers who may be keen to customize or integrate Tumpanginto their blog or corporate websites. For now, web users can still make use ofTumpang's RSS feeds to see the latest items on sale.
Tumpang is designed for the growing community of smart shoppers, according tofounder, Jefrey Ong, we aspire to be THE place for the best bargains.
Tumpang charges traders a fee for posting up items for sale. A Driver of an articlefor sale must specify the standard price of his item and the discounted TumpangPrice he is offering to users. Charges are computed based on the savings amount tomanage fraud and prevent traders from over-declaring the savings of his sale. Thefee is chargeable in Toints, Tumpang s very own proprietary currency. Present ratesfor Toints are at USD 0.01 per Toint. However, new members will be given 1,500 freeToints upon signing-up.
Tumpang was launched locally in its home country of Malaysia on April Fool s daythis year. Prior to that it had been testing for over a year. To date, the site hasover 5,000 registered members and has helped Malaysian shoppers save almost MYR90,000 (approximately USD 25,000). Tumpang anticipates a massive grow in thesenumbers with its worldwide launch today.
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