Local Deals are Coming to Kindle

Allison Howen — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Amazon has announced that local deals will soon be coming to Kindles.

Customers of the Kindle and Kindle 3G with Special Offers will start receiving special offers from AmazonLocal on their Kindle’s screensavers. AmazonLocal with Special Offers is launching in New York City and will be expanding to all AmazonLocal cities within the year.

The AmazonLocal deals will be viewable and purchasable directly from the Kindle without re-entering any payment information. After purchasing a deal, a voucher will arrive on the Kindle’s home screen.

Purchases are redeemed by printing out a copy of the voucher or showing the voucher on the Kindle to the local merchant.

The deals will start to arrive on the Kindle as soon as a software update for the latest generation arrives in the next few weeks.

Amazon has more than 144 million active customers, and emails customers in a local business’s area for businesses that promote deals through AmazonLocal.

This could be beneficial for local businesses since according to ComScore, Amazon customers spend 70 percent more money online than the average Internet user. Businesses also don’t pay for promotions through AmazonLocal, instead a business only pays a referral fee for customers that they acquire through the deal.

Groupon Facing Stiff Competition

Michael Garrity — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:00:00 GMT

E-commerce is a rough game, and that is a lesson that the Chicago-based daily deals website Groupon is learning first hand. Over the last two days, they've seen two of their primary competitors in the daily deals business partner with Internet powerhouses Google and Amazon, respectively.

The first big bombshell dropped on August 1, when Google announced that they had acquired Dealmap, a site that compiles local offers and then displays them for users on a Google-powered map. It's safe to assume, then, that this agreement will lead to deals being blended with the traditional Google Maps site in the near future. As many have noted, Google have a number of location services at the moment, but none of them really sync up to create a cohesive experience for users. The acquisition of Dealmap should help to expand on Google Offers, the company's current daily deal site, as they continue to expand their mobile and social platforms.

Interestingly, just last year Groupon rejected a $6 billion acquisition deal from Google.

It is also important to note that Groupon offers are actually among the many deals displayed on Dealmap.

As if that wasn't enough, just one day later Amazon came out with an announcement about Amazon Local, their own venture into the world of daily deals. And to add insult to injury, Amazon Local's initial rollout will take place in Groupon's hometown of Chicago.

LivingSocial, Groupon's closest competitor, has signed on to be the sales force behind merchant partnerships with the service. Though Amazon plans to eventually hire its own sales force, at the beginning they will outsource sales to help quickly get the project off the ground.

In December 2010, Amazon invested $175 million into LivingSocial, so by enlisting them as its sales force, they will begin to see some of that investment come back to them.

While Groupon has thus far been successful in thwarting the attempts of smaller start ups like LivingSocial, Gilt City, and Zozi, they will likely have their hands full with the onslaught of these existing large companies with a huge Web presence. Companies like Google and Amazon (or AT&T and American Express, who also expressed interest in pursuing daily deals programs) will have to pay far less than start ups for user acquisition, as the users already exist; it just becomes a matter of extending an offers channel within the site's existing framework.

What does this mean for Groupon, or more importantly, for future retailers who use their service? Only time will really tell, but it's certainly something many people are going to want to keep an eye on in the near future.

'Net Features : Amazon Local

Local Deals are Coming to Kindle

Groupon Facing Stiff Competition