Aug 25

Beyond Groupon: Localized Deal Sites

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If you’re like thousands of Americans, you’ve discovered the magic of Groupon– when Groupon held a 50% in GAP stores last week nationwide, they sold hundreds of thousands of them, crashing the system and causing some users troubles when they tried to purchase the deal. Groupon works by only making each daily deal effective once a certain number of people purchase the deal. Due to the popularity of the site, most of the deals do get “tipped”, allowing them to be active.

groupon logo112092 300x204 Beyond Groupon: Localized Deal SitesBesides Groupon- which is by far the most popular ‘daily deal’ website, there are still several other options. Below are some of the options that are available in Kansas City and other major metropolitan areas.

  • LivingSocial- There’s no ‘threshold’ in order for this deal to be effective.
  • Blackboard Eats – currently has deals for online purchases, as well as in person deals in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These deals are usually for restaurants or luxury food items.
  • Dealbug- This site is currently just in the Kansas City metro (focusing on Lee’s Summit)
  • Adility Daily Deals- This website claims to have deals every day, but a lot of the deals (at least in my experience) have been the same, or they cycle the same deals each week. There’s no ‘threshold’ for this deal, it is effective immediately.
  • MyPerks-This is a deal website that is owned by Entercomm Communications, a major radio broadcasting company. The deals in each city are promoted by the Entercomm-Owned radio station(s) in that city. These more like discount gift certificates that are sent by mail.
  • SpaFinder.com Deal Days- There are spa, pilates, and other wellness businesses offering great deals across the country on this site. Their “Deal Days” are September 20-26, but the deals on the link seem to be available now. You also have to call the spa in question in order to book the deal.
  • Zozi- This is a newer groupon-like site where a certain number of people have to buy the deal in order to get it. Zozi focuses on activities- like kayaking, sailing, cooking, and more. There are many cities listed but some cities are not “live” yet. However, you can sign up for your city and Zozi will let you know when the deals start in your city.
  • Muncharoo- This is a daily deal website that is only in Kansas City for now, but is planning on growing to other cities in the future. Muncharoo only focuses on restaurant and food deals, and many of the deals last for several days.
  • Restaurant.com- This is another discount gift certificate site that has some stipulations. Usually customers have to spend a little more than the gift  certificate (eg. if the gift certificate is for $25, you have to spend $35) and some restaurants only allow them to be used on certain days. However, combined with the already 50% off prices, search online for “restaurant.com discount code” to find coupon sites which have codes that take an additional 60-70% off your online order. In some cases, I’ve paid $2 for a $25 gift certificate!
  • KindCoupons.org is an aggregated coupon site that also donates money to charities anytime you take part in one of their deals. Sounds like a win-win to me!

Some of these links are affiliate links.

UPDATE: http://localdealsites.com/ is a great resources for all deal sites online and in your area, as recommended in the comment section. Thanks for the tip!

Related posts:

  1. Groupon Makes Coupons Cool Again
  2. How to Use Bookmarking Sites to Get Inspiration for Your Next Writing Project

7
comments

Posted in Featured, social media

  • http://blog.brosix.com Ashley

    This is amazing! Thank you for aggregating these!

  • http://www.groupon.com/r/uu445062 Mark

    There’s also a slew of daily deal websites for actual items you can buy online, not just at local businesses. That should be your next post. :)

  • http://www.idiomstrategies.com/ Christine Fife

    Groupon certainly gets the bulk of the press, so it’s nice that you’ve mentioned some local deal-of-the-day sites. In San Francisco (they also have other city locations) there is a popular one called HomeRun.com

    As I’m sure some of your members are businesses, I’d like to share with them the following blog posts about using deal-of-the-day sites for their business. These sites are great for consumers but they’ve caused problems for many businesses, including causing some companies to loose a great deal of money. It’s important for businesses, especially small, local businesses to really understand how these sites work.
    Groupon Nearly Killed My Small Business
    http://idiomstrategies.com/Idiomatic/archives/358

    and

    Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer
    http://idiomstrategies.com/Idiomatic/archives/364

  • http://www.sparkspree.com Mark

    sparkspree.comThere’s a new deal of the day site that started up this week for Atlanta (with more national offers coming in just a few weeks) called SparkSpree. Same concept as the other daily deal sites, only SparkSpree’s parent company has been around for over 10 years in the employee discount program business, so they have discount savings experience as well as contacts with tons of popular local businesses that they’ve worked with over the years.

    Subscribe for free at
    http://www.sparkspree.com

  • http://www.localdealsites.com/ Dave

    localdealsites.comThe number of Groupon copycat sites has exploded in the last year. LocalDealSites.com lists over 100 Groupon-like daily deal websites and let’s you filter by city so you can see which sites have offers in your area. http://www.localdealsites.com/

  • Pingback: My Favorite Websites « A Happy Life

  • Brad

    A great site where you can find all the deals from Groupon, LivingSocial, WagJag, Dealfind and all the other top group buying websites is http://TheDealPages.com. You can browse deals based on category and location.