Any room for a groupon clone?

There was room for a Groupon clones just ask Tippr, EverSave, HomeRun, GiltCity, Zozi, BuyWithMe, and the other bajillion Groupon clones out there. The problem is they're all exact clones and will probably end up biting the dust the minute this coupon craze ends. If you're going to put another social couponing site out there I'd at least make sure it has some sort of twist that separates it out from Groupon and all its exact clones.

Also lets remember that Groupon outdoes the competition mostly because it's in 300+ markets. It's next closest competitor, Living Social, hasn't hit 250 markets yet. The other clones? Most of them are in less than 20 markets so reach is a major hindrance to growth. How would you overcome that?

How is that coupon site working for you or is it to early to tell??

It's difficult creating a site like that because you will need unique offers from specific companies all around the USA. Although it can be difficult nothing is impossible

Now there is an MLM Coupon company called Qnanza.....

I'd shy away from this business, personally.

Slimpon...the word just takes me in another direction, something one would find on a shelf in a store

A full on Groupon/Living Social...Probably not. At least not enough to viably compete. I, however, run a local only version of Groupon. If you are thinking of a "buy now" coupon site then local is what you should focus on.

There is definitely room for local deal websites.

I'm doing something similar to Groupon however I'm targeting the businesses of a certain city or even a district (in larger cities). I'm charging a one time fee per deal and local businesses are all very interested. All traffic comes from SEO. What do I offer that Groupon doesn't?

1 - My traffic comes from SEO. That means that people who end up on the website are actively searching for restaurants, SPAs, etc.

2 - The business owner doesn't need to worry about its ROI. He/she pays 10€ and gets his deal published in its section.

What are the benefits for me?

1 - The website might not make much money but I caneasily scale it. 10 websites each making 200€ a month add up to 2000€.

2 - I can upsell these businesses like crazy. I can offer them a landing page so they can build their list, I can offer them mobile websites, etc

Disclaimer. I haven't actually implemented this completly. I'm SEOing the website however I have been visiting local businesses actively and 5 out of 10 are interested in getting their deals on the website for 10€ per offer.

Have only used LivingSocial once. Results were great for getting people in the door for the money.

I like the idea above of a niche-oriented coupon site. I can see that exploding depending on the niche. If, for example, the niche were, say, Making Money Online, I can foresee multiple streams of income. Not only could you make money on the spread between what price a WSO author, for example, would be willing to sell his wares and the price you sell it to the final consumer, but you could also make money off the list of buyers. Perhaps WSOs aren't the best example, as they are already deeply discounted, but you get the idea. Maybe team up with some clickbank product producers. Just some thoughts!

Aren't we over the coupon craze yet? These models bleed money, often disappointing small business owners and churning a high percentage of subscribers.

To compete head on is like jumping into a shrinking pool.

I'm sure there is some room to innovate. There are some interesting models listed above. Whatever you do, realize that this business is something like 10% IM and 90% offline sales. If that is what you are good at, then it may be worth consideration.

Personally, I would keep looking at other ideas before settling on this one.

There is a ton of oppty to tweak the model. No need to throw baby out w/ the bath water.

Every offliner should kiss the feet of groupon/living social. Why? They paved the way and have shown businesses will cut their prices 50% and give YOU 50% of their take to deliver them a customer. That is HUGE!

Quit railing on the groupons of the world, tweak the model, adjust the percentages and go out and make some freakin money!

The "Ah-ha" moment I had regarding GroupOn was when a business owner referred to those "customers" as Groupon's, NOT the business's.

Think about it.

I think there are two fundamental problems with Groupon:

1) The business buys the worst type of customers -- those that are primarily motivated by price and price alone. Groupon customers swoop in for the cheap deals, and leave. I'd want to cultivate a relationship with a customer that leads to repeat purchases and higher spend, which leads me to point 2...

2) If you look at Groupon like a lead generator, then you can make it effective. Your buying leads for the opportunity to build a relationship. And as successful salespeople know, you have to have a large swath of leads in order to succeed consistently. And that requires the salesperson to collect data like contact info, and other relevant information in order to build a pipeline to cultivate a business out of.

Point is Retail America doesn't get it. They need consultants to realize the full, long-term value of a Groupon Lead Generation campaign. The problem is the salespeople for Groupon are just salespeople. They aren't interested in developing their client's business with their deals.

Truth is they suck as much as their customers at getting repeat business, and that is why their business model fails.

Rearden, yep, businesses are the stupid ones, yet people more often rip on daily deal sites. After using a couple dozen coupon deals, I never ONCE, not once, was contacted by any of the businesses. Not a one. Some of them had my contact info too, such as massage businesses. Others were too stupid to even ask me for my contact info. These businesses deserve the blame, not coupon sites.

Businesses are dumb to give away the house in structuring their coupon deals. Promote a portion of the product or something that is easily upgradable. My friend who owns a med spa absolutely kills it. She might run a coupon on a few units of botox, when the average person needs many more. Only stupid businesses will run a daily deal on the who enchilada complete service. She then markets to that list on her own and runs some deals profitably because she has now cut out groupon/living social.

After a business does a deal or two they are so dumb not to negotiate % commission to the deal sites and pit them against each other. You should be able to get them down to 20-25% instead of 50% cut. It's just insane people just sit there and grab their ankles. The deal sites are hungry for business and will wheel and deal, putting more money in your pocket, just for asking.

Another friend runs daily deals on VIP monthly memberships to her salon which give customers discounts. It's FREE money to her as she is getting people to pay her monthly for access to specials and discounts.

I can't believe how stupid many businesses are when they give away the house then complain about groupon!!! But that should tell you its not as hard to be successful as many think, just showing up gets you a long way. And it also tells offliners that businesses need our help making money--->opportunity.

I'm putting together an idea for a daily deal agent program, being a negotiator for businesses to get them better daily deals, structuring them properly, and capturing a % of the savings. Show the ave daily deal biz they can cut their payout by 10%, and keep the other 10%. Not a bad commish on gross sales for putting some deals together and making daily deal sites compete for biz.

Mediaspree and NewParadigm took the words right out of my mouth, and so, +1000 to what they wrote.

niches are where its at. Groupons biggest mistake was not doing everything it can do to make people choose only categories they are really interested in. Groupons problem was trying to be all things to all people, and ended up being tuned out like spam. they should have almost forced customers to choose more specific categories, instead they got greedy and spammed everyone and left it up to the customer to seek out the category page, which was still too broad and simplistic.

I was tired of getting nail salon deals, I'm a ****in guy for goodness sake! Groupon couldn't even delineate and filter that??? I had to go out of my way to find some page to opt out of some categories such as spa, but I did like getting massage deals. Categories were too broad.

Anyone who can target a market will do very well.

Take the subject/market of hunting. A groupon clone would go gangbusters just focusing on hunters. deals for deer season featuring a deer stand, deals for duck season featuring a duck call, national deal for camouflage raingear, hunting lodge trips etc.... there are millions of hunters that would sign up and be very active

That goes for any more defined market like hunting that is still hundreds of thousands or millions large. There are tens of thousands of these sizable groups/markets to nail.