Melanie Pinola ?
If you're into the daily deals scene where you can grab huge savings on cool items and services, you may have run into a problem: limited-time offers flooding your inbox. To get a better picture of these daily deals sites, we tracked the five most prominent ones?Groupon, Living Social, Google Offers, Amazon Local, and Facebook Deals?to see the kinds of discounts and goods they most often offered.
Our Unscientific Methodology
The five sites we tracked for about two weeks are: Groupon, Living Social, Google Offers, Amazon Local, and Facebook Deals. Groupon and Living Social are two of the most popular daily deals sites, so we tracked their featured offers on both the US east and west coast (NYC and LA). While Google Deals, Amazon Local, and Facebook Deals are only available in limited areas, as giant companies they have great potential; we followed Google Deals in Portland, Amazon Local in Boise, and Facebook Deals in Austin, Atlanta, and San Francisco.
General Findings
We found that most of the discounts were at least 50% off the normal prices; a few went as low as 33% off but some categories also went as high as 90% off. The biggest discounts tended to be for personal care services and independent retailers.
- Restaurant dining offers, which made up a majority of offers, tended to be in the 50% off sweet spot.
- Dance and fitness classes went from 67% to 83% off, with multi-class/multi-session offers the norm.
- Cosmetic/beauty coupons ranged from 50% to 90% off. These include spa services, teeth whitening, and hair salons, which we also saw a lot of.
Groupon
Groupon is probably the most popular of the deals sites, and the service has a wide presence in both the US and other countries. While there's at least one featured deal for each local area each day, Groupon also offers several other deals daily to members.
Trends: Over the two weeks of getting Groupon offers, we saw discounts ranging from 50% off to 85% off. Popular categories were personal care treatments, fitness classes, and dining, as well as experiences like wine tours and travel packages.
Example deals:
- $29 (83% off) for one month of unlimited yoga classes or one private yoga class
- $150 (50% off) for two kids' summer camp sessions at a bounce playground
- $5 (50% off) for breakfast/lunch at a restaurant
Living Social
Living Social, another popular daily deals contender, works very similarly to Groupon. Living Social offers deals in Europe and Australia as well as North America, and has specific sections for family-related deals and travel getaways.
Trends: Over the two week period, most of the featured offers from Living Social were 50% off. There were only a few above that half-off discount, with the highest discounts for things like Botox treatment (74% off). Living Social offered typical discount categories (spa, fitness, dining), but also more domestic/household offers than we saw featured at Groupon.
Example deals:
- $35 (50% off) for brazilian wax or manicure/pedicure with reflexology
- $36 (58% off) for cleaning services for a studio (other options up to three rooms for the same percent off)
- $25 (50% off) on nursery plants and flowers
Google Offers
Google Offers, in beta, is currently available for Portland but coming soon to NYC and the San Francisco Bay Area. While Groupon and Living Social offer many different discounts each day, Google Offers is right now really one deal a day.
Trends: During the time we tracked Google Offers in Portland, offers ranged from 50% off to 90% off. Popular categories include fitness offers, activities like laser tag and arcade tickets, spa services, and coupons for independent retailers (book stores, coffee roasters, etc.)
Example deals:
- $15 (50% off) for food and drinks at an Italian restaurant
- $70 (60% off) for three group workouts and two personal training sessions at a fitness studio
- $59 (85% off) for a dental package including exam, X-rays, and take-home whitening for life
Amazon Local
Amazon Local launched in Boise, but is now available in several Washington state areas like Seattle and Tacoma. The site offers one deal each day, and if you use an Amazon Rewards Card (one of the best credit cards for buying from Amazon), you can earn points from buying on the deals service.
Trends: The offers are said to come from Amazon partner Living Social, so the one-deal-a-day offers tend to be very similar. The majority of deals tended to be 50% off household services and local fitness classes.
Example deals:
- $49 (50% off) for carpet cleaning for 2 rooms (or 3 or 4 rooms, with the same percent discount
- $39 (68% off) for ten class yoga pass
- $28 (50% off) for hand car wash and wax or express car detail
Facebook Deals
Facebook Deals was launched in late April this year and is currently available in Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco. As Read Write Web writes, Groupon and Living Social have some serious competition now (i.e., they're "seriously at risk of being roadkill"). You may be able to use Facebook Credits (virtual currency) to get discounts for events.
Trends: We didn't track Facebook Deals as long as we did the other services, but it seems like the deals offered for each city on Facebook are pretty tailored to the area, with a leaning, perhaps, to activities rather than merchandise or services. There were low discounts of 33% but also some very significant savings and unique deals, like $999 (50% off of $2,000) for a champagne breakfast balloon ride over wine country in San Diego.
Example deals:
- Austin: $199 (44% off) outdoor movie rental?a jumbo 16-foot screen and sound system at your event. Austin also had many activities and outdoor events like tubing for 6 people for $39 (53%)/
- Atlanta: $32 (72% off) for kids theater, dance and music classes. Many fitness and cultural activities were offered in Atlanta.
- San Francisco: $20 (66% off) for luxury shuttle tour of SF. Lots of tours and outdoor activities (waterfront biking, kayaking, etc.) offered in this city.
Summary
It would be nice if we could say one daily deals site provided better discounts than the others, but the truth is they all have a range of offers that may appeal to you, while providing the same range of promotions. Broadly speaking, our takeaway was that:
- Groupon has the widest range of discount offers with slightly greater discounts on some services than other deals sites.
- Living Social has more personal care and household offers (in addition to the dedicated family and travel sections).
- Google Offers may provide more local retailer deals, while also rotating standard daily deals categories once a day.
- Amazon Local, like Living Social, is good for local personal care, fitness, and household offers?in a focused one-at-a-time way like Google Offers.
- Facebook Deals offers the same general daily deals discounts (dining, fitness, personal care) as well as some unique deals for activities and events.
If you don't care to have your email cluttered with discount deals but also don't have the time to check these sites every day, aggregators like Yipit let you access (and be emailed) the offers from most of the daily deals sites and filter by site, categories, and more. Although Amazon Local, Google Offers, and Facebook Deals aren't on Yipit's list, over three dozen deal sites are (depending on your location).
Do you have a favorite deals site? Although we've covered the most popular deals sites on a previous Hive Five, it doesn't hurt to ask again.
You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter.
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