Unless you live in a cave for the past two or three years, you’ve been subjected to countless deal sites’ attempts to get you to receive daily offers and purchase discounted goods & services from businesses in your local area. Companies like industry leader Groupon have generated so much attention lately, it’s been impossible to miss. Whether you bought a deal to try out that new restaurant around the corner, saw their controversial commercial at halftime of the Super Bowl, or marveled at how they could turn down a $6 Billion takeover bid from Google, you were talking about Groupon in 2010.
In 2011, there is probably no one on earth that wants a do-over worse than CEO Andrew Mason as he watches his potential for a huge IPO payday shrink daily. Current market conditions and the skyrocketing costs to acquire new customers (from $7.99 in March 2010 to $30.74 in March 2011) has Wall St. backing off its love affair with Groupon. What does this mean for the industry as a whole? Well, nearly one-third of all daily-deal sites nationwide—or 170 of 530—have shut down or been sold so far this year, according to daily-deal-site aggregator Yipit.com.
In his Wall St. Journal article, “Get 'Em While They Last: 'Daily Deal' Sites Dying Fast,” Shayndi Raice details the challenges facing the daily deal space and what this means for local businesses. Click here to read the article in its entirety.
Leave a comment »