Remember coupon clipping? Mom with the scissors slicing up the newspaper to save a few bucks? Well, the Internet has changed all that. These days, there are downloadable coupons and printable emailed vouchers. There are even money-saving offers on the flipside of our grocery receipts. And that’s just scratching the surface. Take Groupon.com. Groupon is the brainchild of Andrew Mason. It’s a website that turns money-saving offers into a something akin to vigilante justice.
Here’s how it works: the site posts a different offer each morning and sends an email notification to all its users. If a large enough number of people sign on to the day’s offer then the deal becomes available to the masses. If the predetermined minimum is not met, then no dice. No one gets the deal that day. The offers on the site are usually very niche products and activities. Cooking classes, whale-watching, herbal mud baths–– that sort of thing. Groupon uses Social Media like Twitter and Facebook to get the word out on the offer of the day. Right now, Groupon is available in some 40 markets across the U.S. and Canada. Pretty cool.
Then there is Woot. Woot is less like democracy in action. But it too offers a different deal everyday on its website. The difference is the offers will run out when the product runs out. At midnight, a new item appears on the auction block. Jasmere.com is another daily deal site that’s sort of a cross between Groupon and Woot. With Jasmere, the more people who buy the featured item, the more the item’s price goes down.
Innovative sites like these have a certain cool factor, but at the end of the day, they are simply pushing the buttons that retail marketing has always pushed. “Here’s a great deal, but you better act now. Because it won’t last long.” Where have we heard that before?
