Product Archives: LivingSocial

You Don’t Need To Make A Mint With Mintbox By Your Side

Categories: Online Coupons

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Just trying to stay fashionable can be enough of a pain.  The shoes that dazzled your friends last year are this year’s charity donations.  The dress that once looked great in the mirror at the store now is in your closet attracting spiderwebs.

How do you stay fresh and not bankrupt yourself in the process?  Fear not, style mavens: a new website is out to keep you looking great no matter what color you like while hanging onto your green as well.

Mintbox is working with some big-time brand name and designer stores such as Nordstrom, Karen Miller, Saks Fifth Avenue and Sephora to expand your wardrobe just in time for the summer.  Once you use your e-mail address to sign up you’ll have the inside track to invitation-only sales right in the heart of the season!  You’ll be the first to find out about designer previews, exclusive events, and private sales as well.  And those hard-to-get Fashion Week tickets?  Consider yourself at the digital V.I.P. table, and check that inbox — Mintbox has the fast track on how to get into the Super Bowl of haute coutre.  Even if you don’t shop in the store, shopping online with your credit card gets all those kinds of membership privileges and up to 15% cash back on a purchase.

Whether you need Pumas to get back on the jogging track or Ghiradelli chocolates to reward yourself for getting back on the jogging track, Mintbox has you covered.  Not only do they have an online presence via Twitter & Facebook but you can scan their homepage to see the charity work they’re involved in and maybe even get a job with them.

Let Mintbox make this your best summer ever.  You can visit them here.

Happy shopping!

 


LivingSocial Marks Its Territory

Categories: Online Coupons

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LivingSocial.com

LivingSocial.com

With so many daily deals sites out there, and our limited ability or desire to keep track of them all as consumers, you might be wondering which sites will survive and which will fold. Well if outside investment is any indication, LivingSocial is here to stay.

The daily deals platform, which previously used a $175 million investment from Amazon to grow to 26 million members has completed an additional $400 million round of funding. The backing comes from some serious investors including T. Rowe Price, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and Amazon (again). You can tell LivingSocial is working hard to topple Groupon, but just what will all that money be used for? LivingSocial plans to use the funding to hire more staffers, invest in product innovation and continue its aggressive domestic and international growth.

It’s really looking like local deals are narrowing down to LivingSocial and Groupon, but do you think the two can co-exist? And if you’ve tried both, which site do you prefer?


Bing Adds Coupons to Homepage

Categories: Coupons

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Bing.com

Bing.com

When you have access to deals and coupons right off your homepage, it’s pretty convenient right? Well, that’s exactly what Microsoft was banking on when it announced Bing Deals yesterday.

The new feature is a partnership with deals website The Dealmap and follows similar moves by Google and Yahoo. Bing will serve up links to 200,000 coupons and offers from businesses in 14,000 US cities. Coupon providers include Groupon, LivingSocial, Restaurant.com and more. Bing Deals are accessible by desktop or mobile. Users simply click on the deals link from the homepage to see the top daily deals in their metro area. Once they find a deal they like, they can save it, share it with a friend via email or claim the deal directly with the deal provider. If the business happens to be a restaurant there are even more possibilities including reviews, featured dishes and restaurant reservations through OpenTable. Learn more information about the launch here:

Video: Bing Launches Deals

So, what do you think of the news? Too little, too late for Microsoft as it plays catch-up, or a welcome addition for Bing users?


Will Virgin Embark on Daily Deals of Their Own?

Categories: Coupons , Online Coupons

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Virgin

Virgin: A Richard Branson Empire

Mega-stores, commercial airlines, space travel, mobile and now…daily deals? Is there anything Richard Branson’s empire can’t do? A lot of people have already been talking about how giants are entering the daily deals arena with Amazon’s investment in LivingSocial and Google gearing up to release Google Offers. But a new Financial Times report now indicates Virgin may also want a piece of the action, showing exactly how hotly contested the space has become.

According to the report, an ex-Virgin exec first proposed Virgin take a look at entering the online coupon game a year ago. And while a substantial investment may be needed to pull it off, Virgin is a company that can make things happen, and fast.

As a consumer, I think all the interest in the space is great news. All the new entrants should push each other hard and offerings can only improve. Plus, I’m always interested to test out a new service Richard Branson puts his name behind. What about you?

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Top 10 Daily Deals Sites

Categories: Online Coupons

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HomeRun.com

HomeRun.com

With the explosion of daily deal websites, it can be hard for the average consumer to keep track of all the options available to them. Which one is right for them? Which sites should he or she bother checking frequently? 2011 may indeed be a make or break year for many of these sites as a number of larger players prepare to enter the space like Google with Google Offers. As of right now though, here’s a wrap up of the top ten daily deals sites according to Alexa.com statistics:

Groupon
Daily Visitors: 952,470

Groupon is the clear leader in the space right now and turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google to raise funds through an IPO.

LivingSocial
Daily Visitors: 662,994

LivingSocial is helped by an $175 million investment from Amazon and is gaining on Groupon. Their biggest hit was the Amazon.com daily deal offering $20 in Amazon credit for $10. 1.3 million of these deals were sold.

Woot
Daily Visitors: 425,170

Woot is one of the oldest daily deals sites and owns a few other specialty sites such as shirt.woot and wine.woot. In June 2010, Woot was acquired by Amazon, but still identifies as its original identity.

Eversave
Daily Visitors: 165,505

Eversave started offering local and national deals in 2010 and has made a quick rise to the upper tier of the space.

Gilt City
Daily Visitors: 26,846

Gilt is a high-end daily deals site that offers deals on upscale restaurants, spas and events.

Buy With Me
Daily Visitors: 21,696

Once a top-three deals site, Buy With Me has undergone some leadership changes as it seeks to rebound.

Kgb Deals
Daily Visitors: 15,941

This site also offers directory assistance in the UK and France.

Tippr
Daily Visitors: 10,886

Tippr has recently raised funding and is rumored to be an acquisition target for Google.

HomeRun
Daily Visitors: 7,043

HomeRun raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding and is quietly gaining traction.

ScoutMob
Daily Visitors: 6,383

What ScoutMob is doing right now might be the future of daily deals. The site works with your mobile device. If you see a deal you like, send it to your phone.


A Solution For Daily Deal Buyer’s Remorse

Categories: Online Coupons

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Lifesta.com

Lifesta.com

Daily deals sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and the upcoming Google Offers all benefit from the impulse buy. You see a deal you fathom to good to pass up and jump on it, even if you weren’t planning on eating at that restaurant or shopping at that store. In fact, 20-40% of daily deals are never redeemed, making it a complete profit for the websites.

Yael Gavish was one of those people that picked up on this and because there’s a site for everything these days, created Lifesta, a marketplace to buy and sell daily deals that have already been purchased. In fact, a number of sites have emerged in the space including CoupRecoup and DealsGoRound.

You may not necessarily get your full value back on a resale, but getting something back on a deal you paid for and may never use is better than nothing. I’m just not sure whether it’ll encourage you to buy more deals or get wiser to what you actually need.


Group Coupons, “If You Can’t Beat Em’, Join Em.”

Categories: Coupons

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Group Coupons, "If You Can't Beat Em', Join Em."

Group Coupons

With the recent deterioration of the economy, all consumers are feeling the brunt of the recession storm. With retailers hurting and consumer spending not quite back to normal, a buying evolution has begun. Coupon clipping and bargain hunting is back and has been re-invented, even reinvigorated, through the power of numbers. Group coupons offer discounts from merchants by promising them a certain number of consumers. In other words, the coupons only exist if the quota of consumers is met.

Sites like Groupon and LivingSocial have spread their discounting wings to cities across the US, offering huge bargains for large groups of people. And they are becoming extremely popular. While the economy is still grappling to get its footing, Group Couponing sites and companies are thriving, honing in on consumers who although might be jobless, don’t want to be lifeless; They still want to spend what they can on what they want.

In urban epicenters like New York City, where dining out is a part of the culture, consumers don’t just want the name brand stuff, but they also want the high-end experiences, all for a discounted and reasonable price. With more and more individuals hurting financially, but still searching for ways to keep their lifestyle as it was before the recession started, these groups are growing. The sharp rise in popularity and number of subscribers to these sites is evidence that we have witnessed the Darwinism of couponing unfold before us. Now, the more truly is the merrier.

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DealGator Expands Throughout Canada

Categories: Coupons , Online Coupons

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Chocolate Strawberries

DealGator

You may have caught our post late last year about DealGator, the new platform deal site that gives consumers a single place to find, gather and organize coupons. Well, the company has news again – its expansion across Canada! Canadian coverage now includes Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Kitchener Waterloo, Mississauga, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and York.

If you’re unfamiliar with exactly how DealGator operates, it takes the work of finding and managing local daily deals from sites like Groupon or LivingSocial. It collects daily deals and coupons from each city and makes them available on the website, in a daily email or through Twitter. Members can add preferences or filters, and each deal listing includes a customer review of the business from Yelp. DealGator also lets members setup email reminders on deals and coupons they’ve collected, so they are never forgotten before the expiration date.

I think we’re all fans of daily deals sites, but it’s a lot of work to scour them every day amongst the billion other things we have to do. DealGator might be the thing that makes it a little easier for us.