'Net Features : group buying

Mobile a Big Deal for Group-Buying Sector

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:45:00 GMT

A shift in consumer trends and purchasing habits makes it evident that some sectors are increasingly suited to mobile advertising.

Consumers are turning to their mobile devices to access email in droves, so much so that by the end of the year, many predict that more commercial emails will be read on mobile devices than desktops. According to an Affiliate Window case study, the group-buying sector is helping to fuel this growth.

This consumer segment opens 41 percent of its emails on a mobile device and makes 25.5 percent of its transactions on mobile handsets.

In fact, as part of Website Magazine’s Web 100 project, Groupon told us that mobile transactions account for a third of their transactions. The deal website leader also said that it is one of the biggest mobile commerce companies in the world.

As a sector, group buying over indexes what it has seen across the network on average, according to Affiliate Window. The performance marketing network typically sees around 14 percent of sales generated through mobile devices, with the majority of these (7.5 percent) through tablets (see image).

“Additionally, there has been an increase in mobile display activity across the sector with advertising within some of the most popular apps proving to be a successful route to market for sending out the latest deals,” read the report.

The spike in mobile activity for the group-buying sector is down to publisher promotional types that have demonstrated the ability to drive a significant volume of sales, according to Affiliate Window.

“With email more readily picked up on mobile handsets, publishers sending out newsletters have seen a high proportion of transactions generated through mobile devices,” read the report. “Voucher code sites have seen almost 20 percent of all transactions generated through handsets while publishers embarking on display activity (within apps and across highly trafficked portals) have seen in excess of 40 percent of all transactions take place on a mobile handset.”

Five Ways to Build Your Own Groupon

Mike Phillips — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Group coupon buying has overrun the Internet. A $6 billion buyout offer of Groupon.com from Google should be enough evidence of that. Now, Groupon is getting hit from all sides. LivingSocial has turned up the heat, Yelp.com has introduced group coupon buying, Google is working on their own solution, Facebook won't be far behind and even local websites and newspapers are in on the rush.

Why aren't you?

You can be, by using one of these group buying options below.

Chompon.com provides full-scale group buying functionality and, according the them, a site can be set up in under three minutes. That is, if you have deals ready. The software can be white-labeled for full branding, social widgets are available to help spread your deals, daily emails can be set up, analytics are provided and there's even the option of setting up an iPhone app.

DealCurrent.com not only provides group buying software for your website but also offers marketing and sales help and training, affiliate tracking, merchant agreements and customer service, among other options. Deal Current also handles payment processing.

PoweredByTippr is a little more labor-intensive but it might be the most brandable solution out there. They claim to have, "...the industry’s only patented white-label platform, providing the deepest branding options and widest array of configuration options such as three different deal types, incentive/sharing credit management, progressive account creation, Single Sign On (SSO), mobile and iPhone apps, Facebook connect, sales agent commission reporting, and advanced analytics." http://www.poweredbytippr.com

GroupDeals for WordPress is a group-buying widget for WordPress administrators. It can be implemented into your existing blog - a good option for those with an existing audience.

EnMasse for Joomla is an extension (just like a widget for WordPress) that just might put the Joomla CMS on the map. This extension was built from the ground up, specifically to handle group deals and even supports a multi-language pack.

Keep in mind that some of these solutions are more hands-on than others - particularly the widgets. So, expect a few bumps in the road. But the opportunities are there.

Local.com Enters Group-Buying Space

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:37:00 GMT

Local search site and advertising network Local.com is making its ways into the red hot daily deals space, announcing today that it has acquired group buying platform iTwango.

“We believe that the group-buying model is a powerful new development in local advertising that effectively closes the gap between online research and offline transactions, and therefore represents an important step in demonstrating to small businesses the immediacy and value of local online advertising,” said Heath Clarke, Local.com chairman and CEO.

Much like other group buying sites, iTwango allows advertisers to submit discounted offers to consumers who receive those geo-targeted offers daily via email. Group-buying is the purchasing of discounted or special offers from a business on the condition that a minimum number of buyers are found.

“We expect that iTwango will be an exciting new product for Local.com and our extensive network of regional media publishers, who have the feet-on-the-street sales forces to capitalize on this emerging local advertising segment. We will be investing into our group-buying technology platform and anticipate rolling out our first products towards the middle of 2011.”

According to the announcement, iTwango will undergo rebranding and is expected to be distributed widely across the flagship Local.com site and network of over 1,000 local and regional media sites, as well as over 100,000 hyperlocal sites under Local.com management. iTwango is also expected to be made available to Local.com’s regional media network on a private label basis.

Group Buying for Affiliates/Publishers - Get Your ChompOn

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:59:00 GMT

White label daily deals (group buying) platform Chompon last week launched an “Adsense platform for daily deals”. That’s right – affiliate functionality for publishers/affiliates to include a deals widget where an advertising unit would normally be shown. This will enable publishers (websites) to monetize by selling targeted deals instead of advertising and capitalize on the group buying trend.

ChompOn publishers can embed group buying and “flash sales” into their existing sites through a set of customizable widgets or by white-labeling the service. If you’re aiming to dethrone Groupon, ChompOn is really an elegant and robust platform that will set you on the right course.

The service features social widgets (enabling users of your service to like you on Facebook and share deals on Twitter) with tipping points which encourage users to spread the word in order to hit the minimum, analytics (performance and conversion), daily deal email and certificate automation, secure payments, branded iPhone apps and more.

Group Buying Platform for Publishers

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:12:00 GMT

Group buying site Tippr has launched PoweredByTippr, a white-label group buying platform for publishers interested in providing their own branded group buying offering.

"What started out as a cool viral buying phenomena has turned into a huge revenue liability for publishers," said Martin Tobias, founder and chief executive officer of Tippr. "Group buying sites are encroaching on the same local marketing dollars that a publisher's sales team is fighting for. Publishers without a group buying strategy risk losing a meaningful monetization mechanism."

With the immense popularity of GroupOn and LivingSocial, expect publishers to flock to the Tippr's new offering - thanks in part to the white-label aspect (the only one we've come across), and supported by other powerful technology features such as a credit/incentive system, social sharing, mobile support and one-click purchasing.

"Most group buying solutions currently in the market require the publisher to turn over their customers, their brand, and ultimately, the long-term viability of their group buying business to the partner," said Samy Aboel-Nil, president and chief operating officer at Tippr. "PoweredByTippr allows publishers a way to build their brand, increase customer loyalty and drive revenues without having to build and maintain their own technology platform."

Groupon Merchants Telling a Different Story

Linc Wonham — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:45:00 GMT

When you reach the pinnacle of success as quickly and as publicly as Groupon has, it’s only natural to have some detractors along the way. But what started out as a few recent critics has turned into a virtual case of piling on.

The latest case of negative publicity for the wildly successful group-buying startup comes in the form of a survey conducted at Rice University. The study interviewed 150 merchants that have collaborated with Groupon to offer consumers daily deals on their products and services, and the results were not nearly as glowing as the reports coming from the two-year-old company’s headquarters in Chicago.

Thirty-two percent of the responding merchants said that their promotions, or Groupons, resulted not in profits but in losses, while 66 percent said their Groupons were profitable. More telling, perhaps, was that 40 percent of the business owners said that they would not run such a promotion again – a significant contradiction to the company’s data that states that 97 percent of merchants come back asking for more Groupon promotions.

Separate from the study, one of the “criticisms” Groupon has faced in recent weeks is that the promotions have become so overwhelmingly popular that it is difficult for smaller businesses to keep up with the demand they create. The most famous example is the case of a small café in Portland, Ore., in which the owner claims that she spent $8,000 of her personal savings to help cover the costs incurred from selling too many Groupons, of which the company took too high a percentage of the sales.

The incident was highly publicized and Groupon CEO Andrew Mason immediately took to the blogosphere to both apologize to the merchant and to defend his billion-dollar company’s business practices. That seemed to have quieted the criticism for the most part, but then came the Rice survey, which also revealed the following:

•    Among the service industries, restaurants fared the worst with Groupons
•    Salons and spas were the most successful
•    Unprofitable promotions were most prevalent from businesses that had low rates of spending by Groupon users beyond the deal’s face value and low rates of return to the business again at full price
•    Respondents indicated they had largely negative perceptions of Groupon’s competitors

Groupon has been called the fastest-growing company in history and was valued at over $1 billion before its two-year anniversary. It is on par with fellow startup phenomenon Foursquare for the amount of clone companies it has generated, with some very established businesses such as Travelzoo, OpenTable and The Knot also trying to get in on the daily deal/group buying action.

Maybe the Rice survey can provide Mason, Groupon and the scores of imitators a better blueprint for success in this dynamic but relatively uncharted space.