Tech - No more raw deals

A quick look at some of the new deals sites sprouting all over the world.

Prologue
As the internet evolved, one of the major industries to exploit it was retail. One of the initial hypes was around the internet only sites such as Amazon and Ebay. These sites are still holding steady and expanding into more countries and services (such as Amazon Web Services). Once these sites started succeeding, the brick and mortar retailers were quick to jump the bandwagon. Some of them like Tesco have been very successful, it's online grocery is now one of the leading in the world.


Main Story
Adding to the mix has been Google. They initially debuted Froogle which morphed into Product Search and the latest avatar is Google Shopping. They are even trying their hand at designer shopping, check out boutiques.com (beta at the time of writing this blog). It includes designers like 7 for All Mankind, Oscar de la Renta, Diane Von Furstenberg and others. It features a unique "visual" search.


In all this, there is now a spoiler namely deal sites with Groupon leading the pack. The method used by the deal sites is to have local (to a city) and short (1-2 days) offers. With the exploding usage of smartphones, these sites are having a mobile presence to it. The sense of "urgency" is quickly conveyed to the customers using the mobile. Another tactic being used is to carry out their sales/marketing activities using social websites such as Facebook. There are different types of deals as well, more on this topic in a later post, I am still researching and trying my hand at shopping in these sites too.


Some of the many deals sites are


I am not sure how succesful they are, but look at the plethora of India based deals sites! Apparently, SoSasta was acquired by Groupon within a few months of starting.


Epilogue
For a change, I am going to stick my neck out. This year, the company to watch out for is Groupon (more articles). Now, that they have rejected the offer from Google, I am sure they have something up their sleeves. They have already started expanding internationally. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, "No one can stop an idea whose time has come.". After all who doesn't like a good deal?


And, Happy Pongal to all.

Update (1-Feb-2011): Some more deal sites are bindaasbargain.com (India), buytheprice.com (India)




Location: Bangalore, Karnataka, India

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