Group Order
| Synonyms: | GO, GOM |
| See also: | |
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Group Orders are a popular way for fans to share international shipping costs by bundling the orders of many fans in one country. The thing being ordered can be fan-made items like zines or official merch. GOs are often organised for preordered items.
Group orders (GOs) are managed by group order masters (GOMs).
The GO system is based on mutual trust between fans. There have been cases of GOMs scamming or ghosting their buyers, thereby making them lose money. There is little recourse in these cases as GOMs often only accept PayPal payments through the friends and family option.
Kpop Group Orders
The phenomenon of GOs managed by individual GOMs is widespread and important to the international fandom ecosystem. The GOMs coordinate the bulk purchase of items. They usually do not profit from GOs. Fanclubs overlap in function with GOs to a certain extent but cannot replace the role of GOMs to international fans entirely at present.
In the case of album GOs, they are generally set up to fufill one or more of these goals:
- Lowering the costs of albums for individual fans. The shipping fee for albums from Korea to other parts or the world can be very pricey. GOs can mitigate those cost by splitting the cost shipping fee between a large group of fans. The shipping cost is often paid in two or three installments for each part of the shipping process (from Korea to the GOM, to the GOM to individual fans...).
- Getting specific photocards/album benefit. Since the inclusions of K-pop albums, notably photocards, is randomized, it is difficult for fans to get their bias' merch. GOMs offer photocard sorting, which involves each buyer ranking their photocard preferences and the GOM unsealing albums and try to match the buyers with their top choice. This system is flawed as the popularity of members varies and inclusions can be mixed poorly in a given batch of albums. GOs nonetheless decrease randomness and overall increase one's chances of getting one of their top biases' merch
- This may be particularly relevant with large groups such as NCT, which contains 23 members.
- Getting exclusive merch or fan created goods. K-pop companies sometimes release exclusive inclusions tied to specific stores. Fanclubs also tend to only operate in Asia and/or within national borders for individual purchases, all the while being open to work with GOMs. Another example is Japan releases only sold in Japan. As such, GOs help international fans gain access to exclusive items.
- Increasing the number of sales the GMO has to their name. The access to certain special events such as fan meets is based on a lottery where each purchased album is equal to an entry. By buying a bulk of albums, GOMs can increase their chances of winning. In these cases, GOMs will at times take on a portion of each album's cost, making them more affordable to others.
Examples of scams and controversies in the Kpop GO system
For example, valentineorders (Sel) was a trusted GOM for about a year in 2019 before suddenly abandoning her orders. Her orders got forwarded to calliesGOs (Callie), who also took over the @valentineorders account. In early 2020, JaeilGOs (Nath) began to help Callie. After a few months, Callie became unresponsive. Nath continued to work on the orders but couldn't get in touch with Sel or Callie. In the end, Nath also abandoned valentineorders as well as her own GO account, leaving many disappointed buyers behind.[1]