Daily Deal Sites Flood the Market

Horizon on 10/09/2010 - 10:31
Last edited 10/09/2010 - 10:39

Daily Deal Sites Flood the Market

Article about the host of new 'deal & bargain sites' coming online in Australia.

"PBL MEDIA'S daily deals website, Cudo, has launched into a crowded market but competitors appear unfazed at its entry, saying they know the market better and are more nimble than the media group.

There are already 12 Australian operators modelled on the US group buying site Groupon.com, offering discounts of up to 60 per cent on anything from massages and meat trays to movie tickets and hotel rooms. Deals are activated once a minimum number of customers commit to the offer. Whether there will be that many still standing in a year is questionable.

Fresh from raising $US130 million ($142 million), Groupon is expected to arrive in Australia and the world's No. 2 player, Living Social, plans to set up in Sydney "in the future"."

Rest of article here:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/daily-deals…

The article would have been far more useful if it had actually listed the 12 existing sites!
But I suppose bringing too much attention to the competition isn't really the purpose of a teaser.

Archived

closed Comments

  • neil on 10/09/2010 - 10:58
    +1

    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/list_of_group_buy_sites

    I count 11 on our list.

    • Horizon on 10/09/2010 - 11:02

      Thanks Neil, I hadn't noticed that thread before.

  • simonk83 on 10/09/2010 - 12:14

    I love these sites, the more the merrier :)

  • drmix on 10/09/2010 - 12:40
    +1

    It's not effective it the deals are just beauty and spa treatements!

  • zhenjie on 10/09/2010 - 12:47

    In the UK we have seen already one big player leave the market due to over saturation. A few smaller ones have stopped also.

    From users point of view, nothing bad. More choice the better!

  • mel82 on 10/09/2010 - 18:03
    +1

    i liked them at 1st, but a bit over the same old deals now!

  • me on 10/09/2010 - 23:35

    I honestly think that these sites were alot better when they first started.

    As I see it, the bad parts are:
    * Alot of the salon deals include services you may not want eg a package might have a massage, facial, haircut, foils…and you may to susbstitute one service for another, but the salon refuses to (even where the service you want is cheaper)
    * I think alot of the salons overstate the original price of the deals - many salons offer packages anyway, so the discount is not always as big as the deal sites would have you believe
    * Some deal sites have failed to mention upper limits on some deals, so, once the number of buyers limit was reached, even though the deal was still available for the next few hours, you'd be unable to buy it.
    * Not all of the T&C's are stated properly on the deal websites - this has led to several people buying deals and later realising that they'd have to pay extra money to get what they thought was included (eg a deal for a banquet in Melbourne recently (can't remember the restaurant or the deal site) advertsised itself as one banquet couon needed per person but 2 diners needed to enjoy the banquet…I heard that several people bought only one coupon for both people, turned up, and were forced to pay full price for the second person. I believe that this was deliberately stated in a deceptive manner…another example being a salon in Melbourne which had a package deal including hair colouring…several people bought this deal only to realise when at the salon that hair colouring was only for people with short hair, and people with ear or shoulder length or longer hair had to pay up to $80 extra to get their hair coloured…none of which was stated on the website)
    * Some of these sites don't allow you to transfer your deal…ie if you bought it in your name, and decide you no longer want it, you are not "allowed" to give it to a friend, because it must be redeemed by the person named on the coupon and you need photo ID to prove its you.
    * Some of the deals don't state that booking is required, but when you turn up to the place they tell you that you needed to book and that they are full (even though you can see that they are accepting "paying" customers)
    * No clear explanation on most sites about what happens if the business goes out of business before you have a chance to redeem your coupon.
    * Most have VERY slow responses to queries, which I think is really poor form considering you only have 24 hours to get most of these deals
    * Some of them don't allow you to use all of you rreferral credit at once eg if I have $100 of credit from referrals, and there is a deal which costs $50, I can only use $10 of my referral credit at once.
    * Some deals advertise that they include a $50 voucher (for example) that you can use on a return visit…and when you get the voucher it has conditions like it can only be used when making a purchase of $100 or more.

    haha…one I saw recently which made me laugh was a deal advertised as a great place to take dad on Fathers day…it was a coupon for a restaurant. And in the T&C's it said 'not valid over a weekend' or something to that effect.

    I also think that the photograph studio type ones are a bit of a rip off seeing as there are several photographic studios who will do the makeup/photographs for you for free and you can choose to purchase the photographs afterwards…eg Blush photography.

    I am also always very conscious about the service recieved when redeeming coupons…where possible I try to not hand the print out over until after the service has been completed or food has been served.

    Overall…I think there have been some good deals, but you have to be really careful. I have purchased several deals from these sites, but I do not at all feel very trusting of them.

  • cloudy on 10/09/2010 - 23:43

    a question I have for my fellow ozbargainers.
    I want to know if you all agree with my sentiments.
    It doesnt matter what brand, who backs these sites, what the site looks/feels like, as long as its a good deal, it works and it doesnt have some hidden terms you'd be happy to buy from them and u'd likely to check it each day for good deals so long as its not constantly junk.

    Would u all agree with such a statement?

    • neil on 10/09/2010 - 23:47

      Agree, although my biggest pet pieve with some of these sites is lack of RSS feed. No way I'm going to check the site at random intervals to see when the next deal is up.

  • neil on 10/09/2010 - 23:45

    No clear explanation on most sites about what happens if the business goes out of business before you have a chance to redeem your coupon.

    I was just looking into this today and Scoopon and Jumponit both give refunds if the business goes bust.

    I think the lesson to be learnt from most of those things is to read the conditions carefully.

    • me on 11/09/2010 - 00:43

      I know they're pretty good, and these terms in their FAQ make me more likely to buy from them rather than other sites :-)

  • martinez123 on 02/11/2010 - 17:50

    I agree niel, it's hard enough keeping track of all the sites poping up. But finally it seems someone has followed the lead here in Oz of Dealery & urbanspoils in the U.S. These sites aggregate all the deals and place them on the one site. My mate told me there are 2 sites here in oz, www.dealsguide.com.au and www.dealmix.com.au. They do a good job :-)

    • neil on 02/11/2010 - 18:06

      Been using Allthedeals.com.au and was happy with their RSS feeds but they the links tend to link back to their own site, or pick the wrong city or show up multiple times

      As for dealsguide, it is missing some group buy sites as well as showing a deal from another city. Also, the RSS feed doesn't work.

      As for dealmix, the site doesn't load.

      • allthedeals.com.au on 18/11/2010 - 21:00

        Hey Neil, Just letting you know that we've FINALLY got all the bugs out of our RSS feeds! We've completely re-written the code so you shouldnt see any of those issues again.

        And we've changed the links back so they link directly to the deal sites :-)

    • zhenjie on 03/11/2010 - 13:07
      +4

      Wow this guy is really trying to sock puppet the site big time.

    • bradtheresa on 07/12/2010 - 22:20

      If you do say so yourself.. Martinez123

  • vouchersin on 05/12/2011 - 17:05

    Too many deal sites, such as daily deals in adelaide are consuming too much of email inboxes. Not only that but there are also complaints on lack of deal details, not enough adequate service from retailers or a deal not pushing through.

    It is still a matter of perspective and enough research on the user's end to find viable reasons as to which deals are to be purchased. All relied on wise decision-making and management of deal sites.

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