Woot, the daily deals site that Amazon bought in 2010 for $110 million, built a reputation for its “pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” business model for shifting goods. Now, the company is facing up to a shift of a different kind: that of its own talent. In the last week, TechCrunch has learned that five six key employees are parting ways with the company. → Read More
Groupon’s VP of mobile, David Katz, says that it has been “business as usual” at the daily deals company since the dramatic departure of founder/CEO Andrew Mason. “We’re still just focused on shipping new stuff,” Katz told TechCrunch in an interview. Today, that includes news of updates to Groupon’s iPhone and Android apps: it is adding a universal search feature that will let consumers use the… → Read More
Bloomspot, a San Francisco-based local offers company which debuted back in 2010, has been acquired by Chase Bank, a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., to form the basis of forthcoming offers-focused products, the companies are announcing today. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed at this time, but it involves the acquisition of both the technology Bloomspot developed, as well as its… → Read More
Today, Groupon has officially found its new chief operating officer. The daily deals leader announced this afternoon that it has promoted Senior VP of Global Sales and Operations, Kal Raman, to COO, where he will continue to oversee the company’s global sales and operations and report to CEO Andrew Mason. → Read More
To drive more consumers to its handsets in Europe, HTC is turning to exclusive content. Today the company is launching a daily deals service called Best Deals, which is rolling out today in the UK, Italy, Germany, France and Spain. Best Deals will aggregate daily deals on food, travel and more from 12 companies: LivingSocial, Trip Advisor, Qype Deals, iVoucher, Offerum, Lookingo, Lets Bonus… → Read More
There was once probably a good reason for why Groupon needed to expand aggressively internationally when it did, buying up other daily deal operations, for fast, inorganic growth. But on today’s Q2 earnings call, those reasons didn’t really come up, with CEO Andrew Mason instead providing a lengthy explanation for why international, led by Europe, hasn’t been peforming very well for the company … → Read More
Plum District, the mom-focused deals site backed by $30 million in funding from General Catalyst, KPCB and Comcast Ventures, is now available as a mobile app. The company is today launching its iPhone application which will allow users to browse offers on their phone, purchase them with one click and the redeem them at local and online stores. An Android version will soon follow.
The app’s… → Read More
Groupon is gearing up to report quarterly earnings later this month, but in the meantime the daily deals giant has another issue on its hands: it’s been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit by Blue Calypso, a digital marketing firm that claims Groupon is infringing two of its patents, 7,664,516 and 8,155,679, focused on peer-to-peer marketing technology. What’s more, from the sounds of it, Blue… → Read More
Waxing for two at Take-It-Offs in Scranton? $100 worth of Polka lessons for 40 cents? An avant garde grilled cheese sandwich meal with metal shavings in it at Chez Naif for $60? You don’t want any of those daily deals, right? But they’re still coming.
Two people (lovers, really), Edwin Hermawan and Lea Pische, wanted to fight back. And they did. With UnsubscribeDeals.com.
“We stopped buying… → Read More
Today comes news of a small but indicative acquisition in the area of daily deals: the UK-based deals aggregator Coupobox has been bought by rival site DealCollector for a song: the price was in the “lower six figures,” according to Stavros Prodromou, the founder and former CEO of the company.
The acquisition is a sign of how consolidation in the sector is hitting aggregators, too. → Read More
Just as we get news of some consolidation in the local content market in the UK, some news of expansion, too: Qype, the Yelp of Europe (and Yelp’s closest competitor in the region), today announced that the number of places reviewed on its site has reached 860,000, with the number of monthly unique visitors now at 25 million. It claims that this makes it the biggest reviews site in the region… → Read More
Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason today posted a letter to shareholders with some updated figures on how the company is doing, and a more specific outline of what Groupon plans to do to to move beyond daily deals: ”To become the operating system for local commerce.”
The move is a significant one as Groupon attempts to shore up investor confidence amidst a series of accounting issues, and the fact… → Read More
As the daily deal space has become increasingly crowded over the last two years, local merchants increasingly feel pressured to run deals, but for many reasons, they end up overwhelmed by the prospect of managing those deals from start to finish, and the big deals players are failing to help them.
So, Setster has decided to do what LivingSocial, Woot, Gilt, and other deal providers are either… → Read More
If you were to stop for a moment and consider what your perfect deals site would be, chances are it doesn’t look a whole lot like any of the big names currently operating in the space. When it comes down to it, we all have our own individual preferences when it comes to products, activities, and experiences. So, the lowest common denominator would be a platform that routinely serves us great deals… → Read More
Just as Lady Gaga, The Biebs, and other celebs did for Twitter, the oftentimes prosaic world of daily deals is getting some of its own glam factor, as NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady is the latest athlete-turned-entrepreneur to launch his own online business — in the form of a quasi-Groupon for sports. With the growing maturity of social media, it’s no longer a secret that distributing discounts and… → Read More
DealBoard, a recently launched iPhone app from Seattle and London-based nFluence Media, has just emerged as a new player in the crowded “daily deals” space. But this app isn’t yet another Groupon clone, it’s a daily deal aggregator. However, what makes dealBoard unique – and why the company has $3 million in funding – is how the app goes about aggregating those deals for you. Instead of just… → Read More
Startup NimbleCommerce wants to become the daily deal platform for media companies (often the traditional ones that are struggling to make money online), and today it’s announcing a big customer — Digital First Media, which manages the MediaNews Group (the second largest newspaper chain in the United States) and the Journal Register Company.
Altogether, Digital First says it reaches 57… → Read More
When Groupon was gearing up for its IPO last year, there was a lot of talk about whether the company would be able to sustain its business on a diet that mainly consisted of daily deals. Today, a little sign of what Groupon might be cooking up for its next course.
Over in Germany, Groupon has launched a new site, Groupon Deals, an Amazon-like storefront that sells a range of goods, from boots… → Read More
Toronto-based deal provider Dealfind is expanding into luxury goods with the launch of a new service called Dream Deals. Starting now, in addition to Dealfind’s everyday and weekly deals, customers will also get “surprise” Dream Deals, which involve deeply discounted retail goods. → Read More
Toronto-based deal provider Dealfind is on the move, having recently gone mobile, and, as of today, is launching something called “Everyday Deals.” The feature is somewhat similar to GrouponNow in that it allows you to find deals you can buy and use right now. But really, the site is more of a deals database, where deals are searchable by location, category and redeemable time. → Read More
Couponing has been around forever, but the popularity of digital offers, daily deals, and group buying is fairly new. We’ve gone through the honeymoon period, watched the meteoric rise of Groupon, its overvaluation, IPO — and thankfully, through it all, we’ve seen increasing scrutiny on the space, especially over just how profitable daily deals actually are for local businesses.
The debate… → Read More
Plum District, a daily deals site for moms, is announcing today it has closed $20 million in Series C financing led by General Catalyst Partners, bringing its total funding amount to $30 million.
The company is also announcing it has acquired two other startups: the newly launched mobile loyalty platform Chatterfly and a direct competitor, DoodleDeals, a daily deals service for parents. → Read More
It’s Cyber Monday all month long, at least according to Amazon, which announced its new holiday deals vertical this morning, residing at www.amazon.com/flurrydeals. The site currently features decently discounted items as an extension of the Cyber Monday promotion. But starting this Sunday, Amazon will begin offering category-specific daily deals. It’s even providing an email sign-up form so… → Read More
Confirming earlier reports, luxury deals site Gilt City, a subsidiary of Gilt Groupe, Inc., is acquiring the assets of failed daily deals site BuyWithMe, after the latter saw massive layoffs following its failure to raise additional funding. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Former members of BuyWithMe will now have access to all of Gilt’s offerings, including women’s, men’s and… → Read More
Daily deal outfit LivingSocial has just announced an expansion to 20 additional markets in North America, mainly U.S. cities, plus one town in Ontario, Canada. In some cases, the new cities are getting access to LivingSocial’s core Daily Deals product, while in other cases, the addition brings the company’s family deals service, LivingSocial Families, to the area. → Read More
Flash sales giant Gilt Groupe is acquiring the troubled daily deals startup BuyWithMe, which recently saw over half its staff laid off after the company failed to raise the funding it needed to survive. Beginning November 1st, BuyWithMe will officially become a part of Gilt, according to a report from BetaBeat, which has been covering the BuyWithMe saga for the past couple of weeks. → Read More
Google has just announced a set of new partnerships with over a dozen niche daily deal providers, which will now be integrated into the Google Offers service, both on the Web and in the Google Shopper mobile applications for iOS and Android. The new Google Offers partners include Dealfind, DoodleDeals, Gilt City, GolfNow, HomeRun, JuiceInTheCity, kgbdeals, Mamapedia, PlumDistrict, PopSugar Shop… → Read More
“The American Dream,” loosely defined, is made up of a few building blocks. The right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. The opportunity to advance, whether through education, sport, entertainment, or enterprise. Perhaps have a family, live in a house, run your own business.
Over the past ten years, for a variety of factors, the pursuit of the American dream got significantly harder. → Read More
Groupon may be struggling to get its IPO out the door, but that is not stopping it from introducing new products. Up until now, Groupon has built a billion-dollar business by getting local merchants to offer great one-time deals to consumers. Those daily deals are all about attracting new customers. Now the company is about to roll out a new product called Groupon Rewards that tries to give… → Read More
In light of reports that the company was canceling its investor roadshow and postponing its IPO, daily deals aggregator Yipit has come up with some positive information regarding to Groupon’s trajectory in August, namely that it had a banner month revenue-wise. The daily deals frontrunner grew 13% during the last month of summer, increasing its revenue to $120.7 million from $106 million in July. → Read More
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