I came across some interesting updates regarding the daily deal industry. Not exactly all intertwined, but at least all to do with the growth in the daily deal arena.
Firstly it’s now estimated that there are 482 of these sites in North America alone and they have just been joined but a heavyweight in the form of Amazon. They recently launched AmazonLocal in response to the growth of Daily Deals. Amazon are no strangers to the market as they already have an investment in Living Social.
Where they might have an automatic advantage is that Amazon has 144 million active customers who can be notified of any deals at a moment’s notice. They recently drew on their own resources with a $10 Amazon voucher for $5 and managed to sell over a quarter of a million of them (I’m unsure as to the email target bases on that deal – if it were all its active users it would be pretty poor redemption!) . That’s expensive customer acquisition at $5 a go, but the depth of that pockets there is not an issue. Definitely one to watch.
Continuing on that vain, a bit of potential enlightening data flashed onto the screen of late – the number of Daily Deal sites that are available in each European country. Now it has to be said that these numbers are not exact and should only be seen as indicative of the actual numbers. Nobody yet, to my knowledge, has anything that can be classed a concrete for each county.
According to the data we lie #9 in Europe with 34 sites offering Daily Deals. It’s interesting to note that the country that seems to be suffering the most in terms of the economic back lash is the country with the most sites.
Finally, publishers, with a readymade audience, are turning towards the daily deal. IN&M have been at it for some time and will shortly be joined by Trinity Mirror who have just launched their daily deal site “happli”. By the looks of things, this jurisdiction is not on the cards for that launch or indeed participation in the daily deals. Perhaps the Irish market is not as well placed for that launch. In the UK Trinity Mirror have a bevy of local newspapers and it’s that platform, local, that’s the cornerstone for the launch.
