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 Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The daily deals space has been a very interesting one to watch, particularly from the small business standpoint. On the surface, daily deals services like Groupon and the slew of others that are coming out of the woodwork seem like a great way to get customers, yet we keep seeing complaint after complaint from businesses who have had bad experiences, not only with Groupon, but with this type of service in general.
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason has called Groupon the "savior of small businesses," and PCWorld recently ran an article on why "Groupon sucks for small businesses."
Last weekend, TechCrunch ran an article called, "Why I Want Google Offers And The Entire Daily Deals Business To Die". Here's an interesting snippet from that:
For businesses, the notion that deep discounting is the way to acquire loyal customers is equally dangerous. Competing on price doesn't get you love; delivering high quality products and services, engaging with your customers and creating unique experiences does. The best customers buy experiences, not price.
I find it ironic that Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks is on Groupon's board. I'm reading Onward, and in it he describes the great lengths that Starbucks went to during the depths of the recession to disguise discounting. He knows that in the long run, deep discounting is bad for the brand.
Interestingly enough, AOL (which owns TechCrunch) has now announced the launch of its own daily deals service with Patch Deals.
Patch says there aren't any upfront costs to promoting a deal with Patch, that they have a standard revenue split once the deal has closed, and that merchants only pay a revenue share for sales which have already been made. The company says merchants will get paid within 30 days of the deal closing. They'll also let you know when to expect your deal to run (approximately), and once the dates are set, they'll notify you so you can prepare (something we've seen complaints about related to Groupon).
Patch says its team works with merchants to create offers, but needs input from the merchant to "get the right facts included". They will help you track who has redeemed the deal via their Merchant Portal. They promote deals via email newsletters ad through Facebook and Twitter.
"Through this simple yet fresh way of redeeming local deals, Patch and Serve will offer users an even stronger connection to their communities and the businesses in their area," commented Warren Webster, president of Patch Media. "We are proud to partner with Amex given their reputation for innovation in the marketplace, and are eager to see how our collaboration may further benefit our collective consumers."
While Patch Deals is already live in a few select communities, it looks like it will be offered more broadly this fall.
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