I think you’re right, the deals coming through even in London are very geared towards beauty treatments. Even the Living Social events outfit doesn’t seem to be gaining any ground at all.

Disappointing to say the least, though I’ve snapped up a couple of good deals this year, there hasn’t been anything in the last six months of even passing interest.

Report this comment

I was actually thinking of writing about this myself. Here in New Zealand we have a whole host of deals websites – GrabOne being the biggest I think. I actually bought a “deal” last night for in Indian Takeaway for 2 at just $15. Thats was for 2 curries, 2 rice and 2 naans. Thing is when we got the Takeaway – we found that the curry and rice were half the size of a normal takeaway. So was it really a 50% off deal?

Ive made some fair use of the Beauty deals though On saying that – they have actually been for the city I have requested deal for. Some are out in the suburbs so I dont use them – but most are for the central city – so I cant complain on that score.

Report this comment

Its true, now a days inbox is getting full of deals like you said beauty products, etc. and i too unsubscribed to every daily deal website.

Report this comment

Agreed. Once the novelty has worn off people realise they want deals when ‘they’ want them, rather than when the distributor sends them out.

Very few deals I see actually have the wow factor to make me go out and buy something on the hoof.

Report this comment

They’re shooting their own prospects down with their scattergun approach. I signed up to Groupon for London offers and lasted less than a week before the deluge of spam had me unsubscribing. If they could even filter the offers at a very basic level they would have half a chance of keeping me and many others as customers.
Like you say Darren, if you fancy going for a pizza with friends there are plenty of sites where you can print off a 2 for 1 voucher without all the email crap that Groupon and others hit you with.

Report this comment

I completely agree. Groupon and its ilk are a waste of time. I’m actually suprised there are many potential investors left for Groupon’s floatation.

Report this comment

The market for daily deals has actually been saturated for a while. Businesses using this model need to think of a new strategy if they want to remain in business.

Report this comment

Just happened to me too. Bit by bit they start to bombard you with all sorts of stuff. It would be much better for these website we sign up with to actually ask us which bit we are interested in and what we are not.

Even better still, if they could automatically take your geo position to offer you what’s on in say a radius on 10 miles would be a much better tool for people than a huge long list of stuff you would never dream of doing or going to.

I live in Spain but my home town is Leeds and I do miss it so much. Happy blogging to all Leeds people.

Report this comment

Haha funny you should write about this Darren, this weekend I unsubscribed to Living Social and Groupon because of the EXACT same problem. I think you need to send them a link to this blog post so that they wakeup and realise what people really want.

Report this comment

I am the owner of a local restaurant in Edinburgh and what we found was that people did take up the deal, but, when people did not turn up at the restaurant, Groupon kept the money that the customer paid – we received nothing. I am not sure if this is a regular occurance, maybe someone can tell me?

Report this comment

Please PLEASE let us have rid of these websites. Horrible business model where businesses receive very little in return.

Report this comment

A few people have mentioned that the deals should be split into categories and I agree. Very few men will want to receive deals on manicures and very few women will want to receive golf deals etc.

Report this comment

@Avalon – I think that’s just disgraceful. Oh, and false advertising if you’re so inclined. Complain to the deals site.

Report this comment

These businesses, and far too many others, are stuck in broadcasting mode, in which they have to send you email all the time. Haven’t they heard of RSS?

Report this comment

OK, so it’s always nice to have an opportunity to invest in a market when it’s relatively new! Now that the daily-deal sites are second nature, it’s easy to be upset… Why didn’t I get in on the deal when it was young?

Well, deal site are here to stay. It’s just a matter of which one will actually deliver the local merchant to us that is willing to provide a deal to get our money!

There you have it!

Report this comment

On the business perspective i used a daily deal site in Ireland to promote my fitness services, namely a BootCamp Military Class i offer, before the offer started i had a good number of committed clients, once the offer started those clients left as they felt aggrieved at the offer… The grab one voucher holders used the vouchers then never to be seen again.

I was a sucker and went for the whole increased footfall sales patter… As pointed out earlier on this thread, people are loyal to the daily deal site not to the business and why not?

With group fitness classes, personal training, beauty treatments etc all on offer it leaves the consumer with the ability to spend as little as possible.
Unfortunately the business is left to service ‘x’ number of customers and even take on additional staff to accommodate the extra customers.

Here is something worth considering.

Whenever an offer is purchased through a daily deal site
1. The business runs at a loss (For the promise of an upsell)
2. The Business is likely to fail
3. The money that would normally circulate within the local community ceases.
4. Tax dividends dive bomb
5. This forces an increase of government taxes
6. It lengthens a recession
7. It is anti-wealth and anti job creation and dulls true entrepreneurial spirit.

Report this comment

I think your right about the deals not being specific or targeted and as more companies start offering the vetting of the deals will get worse (Is it really a deal?). I personally like the idea of group buying better or some ways to find deals in reverse.

Report this comment

They seem to have helped create a society that has come to expect everything to be discounted. I’m looking forward to a shift towards consumers focusing on quality of products/services and good customer service rather than big discounts. But I feel this will take a long time.

Report this comment

I was recently caught out with KGB deals – they promised that I would receive X amount for each massage deal bought, which was already barely covering costs. In reality I received X – 20% VAT, so my share has helped to pay their VAT bill!
They claim that they made this clear when they visited, which they didn’t.
I’ve now received another email from a different KGB rep making the same claim, that the merchant is remitted 60% of the total – no mention of VAT.
The amount received won’t cover my costs and like many have said the people using these deals are unlikely to come back unless you continue to offer deals at a loss!!

Report this comment