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There's a lot of hate out there these days from the press when it comes to the daily deals industry. I'm looking at you, TechCrunch. Sure, Groupon has become the whale in this industry, but that doesn't mean Groupon constitutes the entire industry. Sure, while Groupon may sometimes structure lousy deals for merchants, it doesn’t mean the entire daily deal business model isn't sustainable or beneficial for small businesses. When done right, the daily deal can actually be very lucrative for everyone involved: Merchants, customers and the daily deal sites themselves.
So why should you take my word for it? It's true, I've got my biases. But so many people have quickly elevated themselves to “experts” on this space that it’s hard to filter truth from the noise. My company, KASA Capital, started Crowd Cut in May 2010. We are now a top player in our markets, generating eight figures of profitable revenues. So, when I talk about the daily deal space, I do so with direct experience. I talk to merchants and customers every day. I have numbers to back my claims. I’m a player in this game, not a self-proclaimed expert who sits on the sidelines.
Stop The Hate: Daily Deals Aren’t All Bad, And Here’s Why
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With Groupon generating multiple billions this year in sales, and on track for a $25 billion IPO, we thought it would be good to take a look at how people are really using the daily coupon service.
Last week we surveyed readers about Groupon and daily deals sites. We received 943 responses. Of that, 811 people said they subscribe to Groupon.
From there we filtered our results to only count those who said they use Groupon. What follows is our analysis of the results.
The key takeaways:
See Also:
GROUPON SURVEY RESULTS: Everything You Need To Know About How People Use Daily Deals
Scoop St., the New York City-based daily deals business, has just introduced a feature they're calling Personalization.
The intent is to get more relevant deals to customers based on a few key characteristics - location, gender, and deal category. As different deals match a user's preferences, they receive the deal via email.
"Consumers want more relevant deals. Merchants want more relevant customers. This isn't only an evolution, but it's a much-needed optimization," said David Ambrose, co-founder of Scoop St.
This is only the most recent element we've seen Ambrose introduce into his business. He says there's still plenty of room left for innovation in the daily deals space.
"We're not even past the first inning yet. It's exciting," he said.
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What's The Next Big Thing For The Daily Deals Business?
Microsoft will incorporate daily deals and discounts into Bing search results through a partnership with The Dealmap.The move gives Microsoft another weapon against Google, who failed to acquire Groupon after bidding a reported $6 billion late last year.
The biggest change will be in the Bing mobile app a new Deals tab will provide a list of all deals near the user, organized by size of discount and location. Users will then be able to redeem the deal, save it on their phones for later use, or send it to a friend.
On the Bing Web site, users will have to click through to local results before seeing the deal -- for instance, a search on "sushi in San Francisco" will show a list of nearby sushi places; click through to find more information and deals will appear where available. Eventually, Microsoft says it will incorporate Dealmap deals into the main page of search results.
Dealmap aggregates deals from more than 200 sources, including big daily deals sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, and has more than 400,000 deals on the site on any given day. The company has grown quickly, gathering more than 1.4 million users in about nine months.
In December, the company launched DealExchange, an API which lets developers build Dealmap functionality right into their own Web sites or applications. Now, Bing has become the latest partner to use DealExchange.
One complication: The Dealmap uses Google Maps to display its maps today. The Bing deal won't change that. But the CTO of Dealmap's parent company Center'd is Chandu Thota, who previously led development for Bing Maps, so the company is very familiar with how Microsoft's mapping service works and could be making a switch in the future.
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Microsoft Adds Daily Deals To Bing (MSFT, GOOG)
Yesterday News Corp unveiled The Daily, its new iPad-only daily newspaper. You have to pay $1/week to subscribe to it.
Bad new though: anyone can easily read it for free.
Andy Baio has created The Daily Index on Tumblr, which simply aggregates all the links to each story within the "paper." (You see, there's no front page aggregating, but every individual story has a link, so that other bloggers can link to it.)
So, if you don't have an iPad, or do but don't want to pay, just go there everyday. Voila. (via @fimoculous)
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Sorry Rupert, Everyone Can Now Read "The Daily" For Free
