Group Commerce is allowing publishers to offer daily deals
Groupon’s immense success has spurred many competitors offering group deals on a daily basis.
One company, which has quickly emerged on the scene, is New York-based Group Commerce.
According to All Things Digital, as of May, Group Commerce has raised a total of $18.5 million in funding from investors Spark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Lerer Media Ventures and Bob Pittman, the founder of MTV Networks and the current chairman of media and entertainment platforms at Clear Channel.
David Rosenblatt, Jonty Kelt and Andrew Glenn, three former executives from Google and DoubleClick, founded Group Commerce. Their platform is designed to give publishers the ability offer daily deals. The company allows its partners to sell daily deals themselves, or have the Group Commerce’s sales force do the work for them.
Companies already offering deals with the help of Group Commerce include the New York Times, Meredith, DailyCandy, Thrillist, Boston.com, Everyday Health and Active.com.
Group Commerce is focusing primarily on publishers because of the relationships they have with their audiences. In an article from MediaPost, Kelt was quoted saying, “Ultimately, all audiences have needs, and no one knows those needs better than publisher.”
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Success in daily deals
Daily deals have appeared to be popular, but where is the actual data?
A recent study from ConsumerSearch.com, part of the About Group, supplies just that, as they polled more than 1,000 people to give insight on the true popularity and satisfaction of daily deal websites.
Here are some highlights from the survey:
-64% of respondents described being very satisfied with the last deal their redeemed.
-68% of people who have redeemed a deal have returned to the same business without having another deal.
-53% of respondents reported discovering new local businesses by using daily deals.
-Among those who have purchased at least one daily deal in the past year, 68% have purchased three or more, and 30% purchased six or more.
-35% of respondents reported subscribing to daily deal sites, but haven’t made any purchases.
-Pertaining to personal feelings behind daily deal sites, 27% said ““not many deals appeal to me, but I’m hopeful that one might interest me eventually”, while 17% reported ““the deals are good, but there are a lot of ‘gotchas’ in the fine print.”
-Among daily deal sites, Groupon is currently the most popular, as 71% of respondents prefer it.
This study shows that there are positive attributes behind daily deal sites. As online publishers build audiences through the subject matter they are passionate about, there is a real opportunity to present deals that align accordingly.
For more about how Group Commerce operates, take a look at their website.
