In an article on Adweek, writer Emma Bazilian talked about the rise and, for some at least, the fall of the daily deals industry. In just recent months we have seen a number of smaller sites either being acquired or completely going under. Bazilian gives us a look at sites that are currently doing well and a few of those that have ceased to be.
Sites that Bazilian lists as doing well include:
Bloomspot, a site that focuses on high-end deals and just closed a $40 million funding round this past August
Gilt City, which Daily Deal Media CEO, Boyan Josic says owes its success to being an early entrant into the market and and the fact that it offers luxury deals.
Plum District, a site that offers deals in the mom and children niche. Dan Hess CEO and co-founder of Local Offer network says appealing to a specific demographic is a time tested marketing approach.
The Big Deal, created by Angie’s List for local services like plumbing requires that businesses have at least a B rating to offer deals on the site.
Travelzoo Local Deals that had an existing customer base to work with.
As for those sites that have fallen by the wayside:
Facebook, or at least their deals which launched in April and was defunct four months later. Josic said it was simply a business decision. “They saw that they would have to staff up in these cities … but they’re more interested in connecting digitally.”
Yelp launched their deals last year but recently cut back substantially. Josic said they simply decided to focus on what they were good at.
Scoop St., just one on the many smaller sites grabbed up by larger competitors, in this case BuyWithMe.
RealNYDeal, closed in 2010 and was rebranded as RealDealGrabber, a site providing marketing for retailers and coupon sites.
We Give to Get, a site that played the charitable deals card and lost.
This list is hardly the tip of the iceberg but a good representation of what is happening to sites within the daily deals and group buying industry as well as an indication as to why some succeed while others fail. Bazilian describes her list of failed sites as those “Dropping Like Flies”. Unfortunately this is a list that is undoubtedly going to get much longer in a very short time.
Source: Adweek
