Saving an Icon From Early Retirement

GroupGets helped take the Verrado Electric Drift Trike by Local Motors from the product retirement graveyard, back to eager riders.

In 2014, a new kind of 3D printed vehicle manufacturer, Local Motors, designed and built an electric powered drift tricycle as a fun side project. With the growing drift trike trend, they created a Kickstarter campaign to gain awareness and raise funds to get this product on the market. With 97 backers who pledged $47,030, the fully funded Kickstart project created a buzz and a loyal following.

After a year of production, Local Motors decided to shift their focus solely to the "world's first" 3D printed car and self-driving buses (shown below). They, therefore, discontinued the Verrado Electric Drift Trike and left brand new units sitting on the shelf with a lot of customers asking where to could buy it.

That's where we came in. Upon visiting their Las Vegas office we witnessed a Verrado in the wild. Once we learned the story, we knew that we could help Local Motors continue to delight its Verrado fans without soaking up too much of their bandwidth by batching Verrado sales into rounds of at least 10 on our custom group buy platform.

The first Verrado GroupGet round sold 12 units at $844 each, which included shipping costs. During their Kickstarter funding, the drift trike retailed for $1,560. We captured 12 buys during the first round and due to the popularity, quickly started Round 2 with an increase in available units.

Local Motors cleared off some shelf space and booked revenue for their products, eager backers leveraged their collective purchasing power to get a previously unattainable item for nearly 50% off the retail value, and GroupGets continues to find innovative use-cases for its platform. Everyone wins!

Working with a tech pioneer like Local Motors has been an absolute pleasure and we look forward to continued successes with them. The GroupGets team is also having a lot of fun with our new Verrado!