Dangers in daily deal overdose
TEXT OF STORY
JEREMY HOBSON: To the world of daily deals now. Companies like Groupon and LivingSocial are loading in the venture capital dollars with a mack truck, and now a lot of other web-entrepreneurs are trying to get into the game. Fab.com, now has a gay-oriented coupon offer every morning. There’ll be one for foodies soon at DailyGourmet. So — are we nearing a daily deal overload?
Mitchell Hartman has the story from the Entrepeneurship Desk at Oregon Public Broadcasting.
MITCHELL HARTMAN: Caroline McCarthy at CNET checks out as many online discount coupon offers as she can — it’s her job.
CAROLINE MCCARTHY: There are really just too many to keep track of.
McCarthy likes the New York restaurant offers she gets from niche sites like BlackboardEats. There are now daily deals for guns-and-ammo, pole-dancing, cigars, wine, vintage T-shirts.
MCCARTHY: When you get something very, very niche, you risk just running out of potential customers.
But Jodi Samuels thinks going after one of those narrow niches will be the ticket to her success. Her site J-Deal offers up all things Jewish.
JODI SAMUELS: We offer products that they can’t get somewhere else — a deal on a kosher restaurant is just not something another daily-deal site offers.
CARL HOWE: You’re definitely in danger of being overloaded by daily deals.
Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe says five-a-day is probably the max — then consumers get turned off, meaning many of these sites won’t survive.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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