First, the good news: As of the first quarter of 2013 (the most recent statistics available), Groupon, perhaps the most known of the daily deals sites, had 41.7 million unique customers who had bought at least one of Groupon’s deals during the previous 12 months. That’s a lot of potential customers you could be reaching.
But then the not-so-good: One of the top consumer complaints about shopping with daily deals is that many businesses are so overwhelmed by the response they don’t provide good service to shoppers. Other factors that could have you thinking twice about offering daily deals: You have to share part of your profits with the daily deal site you’re working with. And with so many daily deal sites out there—Groupon and LivingSocial are just a few—some consumers are suffering “deal burnout.”
Should you participate? Actually, yes. While the initial attraction of daily deal sites was the “push” platform that landed your business’s offer in the inbox of your target audience, the business modelhas now expanded beyond simply sending emails—which means there’s plenty of good reasons to consider daily deal sites even if you never have before.
Take Groupon, for instance. To cater to different consumer preferences, the company recently announced the addition of a “pull” model, which allows customers to come to the Groupon website and search for deals closer to the time when they want to actually use them. In addition, the company has extended its reach to include iPad users in 12 new countries, which means Groupon could extend your reach to customers around the world. Finally, Groupon is offering gifting options for participating businesses, including digital gift vouchers and the Grouponvelope. These offerings are designed to help local businesses that don’t offer gift cards expand their reach to gift-giving customers.