The Future of Coupon and Deals Sites

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  cheapisgood on 15/01/2017 - 17:38

  +3

  lol, not the first time I seen similar stories to this.

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  try2bhelpful on 15/01/2017 - 18:25

  https://bestcompany.com/deal-sites/company/dealspotr/

  Review of the company.

  • 

    LeavingTheWheel on 15/01/2017 - 20:48

    lol, those reviews were from 2 months after the company started. Hardly a true indication on what's to come.

    • 

      try2bhelpful on 15/01/2017 - 22:08

      Not making a point either way, just putting the review out there.

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  ihbh on 15/01/2017 - 19:55

  Can you please clarify the business model assuming the reader has no prior knowledge.

  • 

    LeavingTheWheel on 15/01/2017 - 20:50

    I wish I had the business model.
    All I can see is they make money from affiliates were possible and maybe direct brand deals. I'm trying to work out if they are a threat or a non-sustainable business model.

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  djkelly69 on 15/01/2017 - 22:14

  +8

  Don't know anything about it, but as soon as you say "downline" and talk about getting commissions from other people's sales, it sounds like it is a pyramid-selling multi-level marketing scheme.

  • 

    mskeggs on 15/01/2017 - 22:49

    Exactly my reaction. Avoid like the plague.

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  PVA on 15/01/2017 - 22:19

  +2

  terrible deals on the ones I looked at - they aren't genuine deals, just slightly lower prices people are flogging to try to make some money off the post - and they are reposted over and over, even the ones people have commented not working are still reported by others to get some cut/affiliate/whatever$.

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  mskeggs on 15/01/2017 - 22:58

  +2

  As the comments above point out, the incentives are split, resulting in a poorer product.
  Imagine a year in the future, if it all goes how you hope.
  A bunch of MLM shills promote the site constantly on Facebook etc. trying to build their downline, resulting in terrible word of mouth.
  The participants are posting whatever garbage deals they can to try and get results - so the product gets worse and worse.

  Meanwhile, fatwallet or ozbargain rewards their unpaid members with the best deals for free, with reverse incentives. Crap deals are killed and voted down, good deals benefit all because the only incentive is prestige from posting the best deals, so the quality stays high.

  While I can see from your posting history you aren't motivated to contribute much, the reality is many others are, without requiring the conflicting payments.
  The paid business model can't compete with free, because the payment makes the product worse. It is a nice example of free market failure to show why things aren't always better if you pay for them, and reasonably often, economic incentive poisons the well.

  • 

    LeavingTheWheel on 15/01/2017 - 23:18

    -2

    Agreed downline was a poor choice of words, and they are really referrals. I can see your point about free being enough incentive but to be honest the quality of deals on this site haven't been too impressive of late. I'm not sure what's going on.
    As for why I don't post much, it's more a case of there are way too many people trying to show up the noobs rather than be constructive. Sometimes it's just not worth the effort.

    The deals are primarily USA based and couponing there has a long history, and people are prepared to save even a few percent. Personally, I'm not even interested unless it's a 25% saving or more but maybe that the conditioning from this site over time.

    But thanks for you feedback.

• 

  [Deactivated] on 15/01/2017 - 23:34

  +1

  Speaking from the perspective of being both a merchant and also having a team that use OzBargain as consumers, the two things that make OzBargain superior to Dealspotr are:
  1. The quality of moderation & site admin. There are literally countless deal sites, most are filled with spam, bad/glitchy/confused UI, shady deals, and forums that no company wants their brand associated with. OzBargain management do an excellent job of keeping the site awesome - and as most people in business would agree - the idea is not worth as much as the ability to execute the idea effectively.
  2. The overall quality and breadth of the OzBargain community. As some of the other posters pointed out, if you have deal posters that are mostly trying to game the system to earn $$$s you will likely end up with is a site filled with poor quality offers populated by people pressure selling other members or upvoting to get downline commissions. This is not a win for site users as the site community need to be incentivised to curate deals and be helpful to the community, not just themself. Also, merchants aren't likely to get too excited about the prospect of offering cash back or affiliate marketing incentives to the site operators if their site community is one that doesn't have a good reputation. As such, it is a bit of a catch 22 for a new site like this. Surely the operators want rapid growth, but in attracting lots of users in a short period you run the risk of torpedoing the business by becoming popular with the wrong kind of traffic.

  TL;dr Deal and cash back sites are only as good as their respective company management and community and, in this space, the idea is not as important as the execution of said idea.

  • 

    LeavingTheWheel on 16/01/2017 - 00:02

    Interesting point of view.
    I see this other site as flooding the Internet rather providing as you say "providing quality moderation & site admin" and given it seems that Ozbargain enjoys around a million views a month just from search traffic, what happens when this other company starts appearing more frequently in search results.
    I feel dealspotr will easily gobble up the stagnant coupon sites who haven't adapted in an overpopulated market (I'm thinking retailmenot), but will find sites structured around community such as this more challenging.

    I'm still to determine if dealspotr has that strong community.

    Me personally I'm just looking for a bargain. :-D

    Thank-you for your input.