Daily Deal Sites

It should be no surprise to anyone that Groupon tops this list of daily deal sites. Serving over 200 cities in multiple countries and boasting over 4.7 million unique visitors a month, Groupon has solidified itself as the giant in the daily deal industry. If you've been paying attention to Groupon, you may have noticed the new Groupon store feature. This should make every single company that ever was rejected by Groupon pretty happy now that they are able to run their own daily deals off of the site through this new feature. It should be noted that this feature is still in beta testing. It should be interesting to see where Groupon goes next, and if it will be able to survive over an extended period, especially once the economy starts to bounce back and businesses become hesitant of giving deep daily discounts.

The distant second to Groupon, LivingSocial is in over 80 cities and relies heavily on social networking sites such as Facebook as well as it's 365 Things to Do in (Insert City Here) marketing strategy. 3.9 million unique visitors a month. Living Social has also just completed a massive radio campaign costing them nearly $375,000. They are bringing in nearly as many visitors as Groupon with a fraction of the cities but the expansion rate just isn't there. At any given day you'll find nearly identical deals on Living Social as you would Groupon. In reality, anyone that shops on one should shop on the other to compare prices and locations.

In only 5 cities but boasting over 840k unique visitors a month. Buy With Me has recently received 5.5 million dollars from Matrix partners. The site itself may not be as pretty or as nearly well designed as it's competitors but the deal quality itself is there. As long as Buy With Me continues to grow at a pretty fast pace it isn't too far fetched to think that it could eventually become a serious contender to Living Social seeing that the average price of deals listed on Buy With Me are lower. It should be interesting to see if this site will forever remain on the bubble of being a giant or if they can figure out what moves they need to make to become a household name.

The best domain name of the bunch, DealOn is in 12 cities and is currently drawing in 143k unique visitors a month. It's parent company Adblade continues to use their media connections to push them into the limelight. One feature that simply becomes fun to look at is the Deal-O-Meter that moves up and down (usually down) according to how many deals have been purchased. The price usually can go about $5 lower than the advertised discount but we have seen jumps as far as $10. This site itself is beautifully designed and deals they run are usually pretty high quality stuff. Expect to find greater than 50% discounts any given day at this daily deal site.

Tippr.com, a social buying site that originated in Seattle, has recently expanded to around 12 cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Again, Tippr is a daily deal website that offers a deep discount on the offer of the day. However, Tippr has introduced an interesting concept into the group buying game; as more people sign up for the deal, the savings per consumer increases, in a process called dynamic pricing or an "accelerating deal". That really is a pretty neat concept and encourages individuals to share the deal with those in their network with the hopes of receiving a greater savings. Tippr also offers an interesting friend refferal program. By inviting a friend they automatically get $5 to spend on the site once they sign up and you get $5 in credit once they make their first purchase.

BuyWithMe.com is currently in 11 cities across the United States and focuses on the "Daily Deal" concept similar to Groupon and Living Social. What separates BuyWithMe from the rest of the crowd? While there is a new Daily Deal on BuyWithMe every single day, that deal lasts for 7 days rather than the traditional 24 hours. The concept here is to allow time for people to tell their friends, to get money together, and to think over the deal. Deals seem to always be activated with small required amounts ranging from 10-20 purchases. The site interface itself is relatively simple showing a large photo of the main deal with appropriate details below. On the sidebar there is a small slider widget that scrolls through the other available deals in the area. BuyWithMe also offers a refer a friend rewards program. For every friend that you refer you receive 10$ in credit on the site after they make their first purchase. HomeRun.com is getting about 135k unique visitors a month.

Imagine if Groupon and Valpak met at a bar, had a few drinks, made a couple of mistakes, and had a baby. What you'd get is TheLuckyDeal.com, a combination of the best of both worlds. Upon arriving at the site you're greeted with the familiar view of Groupon's Daily Deal and Side Deal elements but you'll notice something different on the right hand side bar, "Free Anytime Deals". These Anytime Deals are those coupons you received once a month in the mail that you rummaged through hoping to find one coupon that you could use on a haircut or local restaurant. Well, TheLuckyDeal.com has developed a total coupon catalog for you to print or redeem via phone application whenever you want instead of waiting for that magical coupon book to arrive once a month. At the time of writing this, TheLuckyDeal.com is currently in Los Angeles, but we noticed that they just added Toronto and sources elsewhere point to expansion in Chicago, Atlanta, and the Dakotas in upcoming months.