I still wonder about the daily-deal business model. The premise that loss-leading discounts will spark increased retail-price customers is losing its believability. In my circle I've never heard a business referred to as "that place I found on Groupon" -- I've really only seen it used as a marketplace for deep discounts on one-time (or nearly one-time) purchases. A groupon for skydiving or a guided tour? It doesn't make any sense.
For the businesses fueling daily deals, the cost of customer acquisition skyrockets. For customers getting the deal, returning to the business to pay full price is hard to swallow. It's going to take some real business intelligence to turn these daily deal companies around.
That said, my heart goes out to the 400+ employees looking at lose their jobs before Christmas. That sucks, a lot.
Well, I can say about the same thing in my experiences. I personally have purchased a good number of the 'daily deal' kinds of things (including from LS), and have returned to a grand total of one. Pretty much among my friends it is much the same story. I think in general the 'deal' market was highly hyped for a product that wasn't providing (and still continues to not) a good value for the actual customers of the deal sites (the businesses, not the users).
For the businesses fueling daily deals, the cost of customer acquisition skyrockets. For customers getting the deal, returning to the business to pay full price is hard to swallow. It's going to take some real business intelligence to turn these daily deal companies around.
That said, my heart goes out to the 400+ employees looking at lose their jobs before Christmas. That sucks, a lot.