Did you give up on daily deal sites a while ago because you were sick of all the emails? There's a new way to get your deals, whenever YOU want them.
The Daily Deals industry is an ever changing place. There is a big shift recently in how daily deal sites are run. That is, away from offering limited time deals, to more of a market place of deals that run constantly.
For instance in 2011 Groupon.com had 1000 deals live, across all it's cities and sites. Today there are 50,000 deals on Groupon, all searchable using the address bar. Deals aren't just single day deals, or even multi-day deals - most are available to purchase on Groupon for months. The beauty of the new business model is instead of waiting for a deal, you can log on any time and search for basically any kind of deal you might want.
But What about New Zealand Deal Sites?
In November we published an article discussing how deals sites will evolve. At that time GrabOne.co.nz hadn't yet moved to a marketplace type site. But checking the GrabOne site today shows a search bar up the top. This demonstrates the change in focus for the site from daily deals to more of an on-demand marketplace.
Interestingly, while the US Groupon site added the search bar years ago, it took Groupon New Zealand until 2015 to finally add a search bar. Other key NZ voucher site TreatMe.co.nz don't have a deal search bar at this point.
Voucher deal sites are trying to become destination sites where users come to them, not from daily emails they send out. Groupon specifically wants to be the first place that you go if you are looking to buy something.
When you want to go out to dinner, you go to Groupon and search for restaurant and your location. All the deals in your area pop up. And if you specifically want Indian food, then you'll find several places and you can buy a deal on the spot on redeem it that night.
So you can see how these sites will evolve, as more and more people learn about the new way to use the site. Imagine how useful these deal sites will be when you are in a hurry, and still want a discounted price. The good thing for users is that nowadays most deals last a long time, some up to 3 months. This means there isn't the pressure to buy now. You can take your time, and find something that really suits your needs.
It may take a while for people to realise that deals sites are changing towards being 'deal hubs'. A lot of people would have grown sick of all the emails the deals sites send out, and may have given up bothering with them. But it's a good time to go back and give them another go. Use daily deal sites as discount pickers. We think it's a much better model nowadays for both users and sites.
GrabOne.co.nz
GrouponNZ.co.nz
