A lot of the work comes from the fact that many of you have no or very little restrictions regarding the minimum investment. If you choose to deal with 100's of of tiny investors, what do you expect?
Thats correct. Thats why burnin (The bitburner developer) now decided to only do B2B anymore because the work involved was too much otherwise.
But a groupbuy has the purpose to allow small buyers to buy. Of course one can raise the minimum but when i see into my list there werent very often chips bought below 20 pieces anyway. Of course a 1000 chip threshold would have helped a bit but its not much better than the 10K threshold avalon used then.
Hate to say it, but that's where gentlemen like myself, waldohoover, CoinHoarder, etc., etc.. help fill in the niche of those looking for complete hardware even if they don't own the entire device. The sad fact is that the very best values are only found in the most expensive hardware, for the most part; hence: Group Buys of single expensive miners for those adapting to rapid network difficulty growth. Group Buys are for those willing to take fractional risk on a number of strong bets among ASIC mfgs *and* Group Buy Coordinators. Those willing to be GBCs better have a lot of patience, be good at selling, customer service, education, and handling refunds and concerns.
When I became impressed by HashFast's Miner Protection Plan & value at the time for B1, I could buy about 1/3 to 1/2 of it so I didn't want to pay share management fees since I would own a big chunk. That's why I, personally, out of the blue decided, hey, running a Group Buy shouldn't be too hard! That was about Aug. 13-14 (I hope I've gotten better at things on my 2nd round for a Group Buy).
For my first real GB attempt, I quickly figured out that the only way I could compete and make a mark was if I offered rock bottom prices with some sort of guarantees in place for miner payouts. I also figured out that the only way the little guy could compete was by us banding together via trusted members so we can collectively get the best prices, technology, and values. My small co-op, which I had no intention of expanding 3 days ago, is currently at 19 members, so there's much less of us to keep track of, so far.
=============================================================================================
I also offer services to smaller custom hardware manufacturers who do Group Buys here, like Barntech, for example, to help offload Customer Service and some marketing to people like me, who are hardware neutral, and advocates for both Buyers and Sellers. I'm able to see things from both perspectives having been in both roles.
I'm naive enough that well over a month ago, I even offered to help dig Yifu (offer sent via PM) out of his hole via Customer Service (AKA as uberfast refunds and sincere apologies to pissed off customers) when he came out of so-called "mafia" hiding and still had some semblance of a chance of salvaging his name and Avalon's reputation. This offer was from someone with no horse in the Avalon race, a CSR background, and the patience to deal with angry people since I had nothing to do with them being angry.
For those willing to put the work and effort into really succeeding at Group Buys...To those willing to take risks, you can't win if you don't try! Ya know that really cute friendly girl that everyone knows but no one asks out? Sometimes they're the loneliest ones because everyone assumes they have boyfriends! Or so I've heard.
Thanks to my first GB launched 1 month and 1 day ago, and my GBEC services, I've already vetted several hosts and GBCs for free, and already have a mesh network of vetted (or soon to be) vetted Bitcoin Miner Hosts available in multiple US states, and favorable possibilities to expand to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia! I had no idea I would have my GBEC services in place *and* a 2nd GB in September. I would probably have voted against such a possibility 5 weeks ago.