Group buying makes me think of supersizing McDonald's meals. You think it's a bargain, more for less, and then you die of a heart attack.

But the thing is the domestically developed business model, known in Chinese as tuangou, is a huge deal and the idea has spawned about 1,000 group buying website operators in the past year.

It works like this on a shoppping website: Click on to the Web page and browse for goods that are offered at a heavy discount. For example, a meal for four that would usually cost about 256 yuan ($39) is offered for just 98 yuan.