Cing.com: No-Commission, Power to the Merchants

It’s 2012 and more and more daily deal sites are popping up. As soon as we learn about them, we inform you!

Over the weekend I received news of a new commission –free daily deals platform that lets any local business offer – and control – daily deals in real time.

Cing.com is a website based in Chicago, daily deals’ home turf, but there are a number of differences between Cing and other daily deal sites. Unlike most sites who craft deals to maximize their own profit, Cing’s free platform puts the merchant in total control and eliminates the commission that eats into profits.

With Cing, merchants can run real-time, highly targeted and time-specific promotions. For instance:  a special discount for the next 10 customers through the door or for everyone who comes in during the next hour. Merchants can even give away free products and services—something no other daily deal platform can offer. It’s all about merchant control, as and we’ve learned, a happy merchant is a happy deal provider.

Anthos Chrysantou is the founder of Cing.com.  “Cing.com is the ultimate combination of hyper-local and deal-a-day marketing specifically designed to help small business owners take advantage of the daily deal phenomenon,” he said. “With Cing, we guarantee the merchant receives 100 percent of the revenues instantly, so there’s no waiting for your cut of the profit. Plus, you have complete control over what kind of deal to offer, for how long and even to whom based on geo-location data.”

I asked Anthos if Cing is solely local, whether merchants across the country can sign up in spite of location. He assured me that merchants nationwide can love onto the site and configure any deal of their choosing. Even if the merchant is national, they can set up the deal to only be available to users in specific areas. Deals can run for a few minutes, a few months, or even on a schedule.

Being in the business world, I asked Anthos “Because you don’t charge commission, how does your site make money?  Do you run ads of your page? Are you sponsored by a bigger company?” His response was:  “We are a much more interested in building a World-Changing product than we are about profit.”

OK then!

Another feature of Cing is that their merchants can offer special VIP deals that go only to previous Cing deal customers, giving these VIPs exclusive access or first dibs on the best deals as a way to boost loyalty. For example, a restaurant might offer a free appetizer to VIP customers who dine in the next 10 minutes before opening the deal up to all Cing subscribers. Or, a retail store might offer special VIP shopping discounts that give previous Cing customers a one-day head start on the savings.

Cing promotes supporting local businesses, no matter where you live. Unlike other deal sites that offer only one deal a day, which may be chosen based on the highest commission, Cing members get multiple deals to choose from that have been cultivated based on what’s most popular among other users or being offered by merchants that are close by.

Cing can also be linked to users and merchants social media pages and users can text deals to friends instantly if they so desire.

My last question to Anthos was “Do you hope that your non-commission deal site will inspire others to follow suit and let merchants have more power over their deals?”  His answer: We certainly hope that our work in creating the world’s first no-fee daily deals platform will influence the future of local commerce.”

Best of luck to the Cing team!

Visit them at http://www.Cing.com