Does Anyone Else Have Group Buying Fatigue?

The recent investment in group buying systems was bound to trigger a spike in the deployment of similar sites. But is anyone else getting bombarded with Daily Deals which are already starting to lose their gloss?

Group buying sites are a win-win for consumers and stores, they offer a simple limited deal at a hot price. While I don’t really need golf gloves and haven’t played for a year, for $4.95 I’ll take 10 thanks.

But is our cool new online purchasing toy just turning into a fad? I subscribe to a few collaborative purchasing sites, and enjoyed a few great deals, but I increasingly feel bombarded by information and I’m finding myself less and less interested in daily bargains. Particularly as they’re now available from so many different Daily Deals Sites.

I think I have bargain fatigue.

Let’s review…here’s a short list of Daily Deal Sites in Australia:

www.ourdeal.com.au, www.deals.com.au, www.whypayfullprice.com.au, www.jumponit.com, www.livingsocial.com, www.grabone.com.au, www.dailyrippers.com.au, www.voucheron.com.au, www.catchoftheday.com.au, www.scoopon.com.au,www.allthedeals.com.au, www.dealoftheday.com.au, www.dealme.com.au, www.cudo.com.au, www.spreets.com.au and the list goes on…

I’ve used several of them and have been generally very happy, but there are only so many bargains, no matter how hot, which I am willing to take up. Now I get so many offers I’ve really lost interest, or at least, I don’t pay them the same attention which I did previously.

The biggest gap in my opinion is that Daily Deal Sites are a good fit for service based and offline business. Deals sites connect buyers and sellers, they do not own the goods or want the risk of fraud or chargebacks if a service is not met. Their model is to sell vouchers representing a portion of the deal with the rest of the transaction completed when the voucher is redeemed.

They don’t really compete directly with online stores who ship physical products, and this gives online stores plenty of scope to offer product based deals via some equally savvy marketing and use of social networking.

I love a good deal, but there are only so many restaurants and health & beauty offers (with a smattering of other services) that I’d be willing to buy.

Frankly, I’m getting bored with the whole daily deal concept.

Let’s face it, cost of entry is low, gaining deals from local businesses is easy (popular Daily Deals Sites have a huge backlog of listings) and the intrinsic value of the Daily Deals Sites comes down to their subscriber base. However, if the said subscribers are anything like me, they are probably not unique or loyal to any one deal site. This is certainly something to be aware of when investing.

I predict more of the same from Daily Deals Sites and growth from online stores, particularly those who recognise why Daily Deals Sites have been so temporally successful.