Admin on May 1st, 2012

Dealclick

Dealclick

Dealclick was launched in the beginning of 2011 and is one of the many group buying websites in South Africa that offers consumers discounted deals on various products and services. The website is full of bright blue colors which makes it feel "alive" and active and the variety of deals is fair. 

Although being a bit of a late bloomer, Dealclick soon adapted to the local market and offered some interesting daily deals. Initially Dealclick offered both service orientated deals, such as spas and restaurants, but today they seem to be focusing mainly on products and offer a variety of electronic deals, home appliance deals, cellular phone deals, watches and gadget deals.

Unlike many other group buying websites which are backed by large media companies, it seems that Dealclick is running solo. It is hard to tell how this is affecting the success of the website seeing how many factors need to be taken into account, but according to their "Recent Deals" page, it seems as though a fair amount of deals have been sold, although not in the same league as other larger websites like Cityslicker and Ubuntudeal. Nevertheless, the group buying market is a tough one, with at least 6 websites being shut down over the lasat year (even those with big media websites to back them), so just holding on for this long is something worth mentioning.

Although their main offices are located in Johannesburg, based on the websites drop down area list, they offer deals in the following cities as well:

Dealclick Johannesburg

Dealclick Durban

Dealclick Cape Town

Dealclick Pretoria

On their website, they state: “Passion drives us – and we get just as excited about these amazing finds as you do!”

Get great group buying deals like those offered on Dealclick here at Dealafrica

 



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Admin on April 13th, 2012

Catch of the Day

 

Catch of the Day is a “Deal a Day” website that usually offers one great product a day – the “Catch of the Day” and sometimes a group of products. The website was launched in 2011 and is one of the fasted growing group buying website in South Africa. The Catch of the Day team is situated in Johannesburg but the website offers daily deals to almost all major cities in South-Africa.

Catch of the Day

The product range on their website is extensive and everyone is sure to find something for their liking especially when the savings on the “Catch of the Day” are on average 30% – 70% off the normal retail price.

New products are made live at midday and run until the following day at midday or until they are sold out. The website offers great product deals which include the following categories: appliances, automotive, baby, books, electronics, fashion accessories, house and home, outdoors, security, pet accessories, tools, toys and games, health and beauty and much more.

The product range offered by Catch of the Day is so extensive and enticing that whilst reviewing their website we got “caught” and even bought a few products ourselves.

Catch of the Day does not currently offer services and rather focuses at present on great product deals. Wisely, in calculating the delivery fees for the products you buy, they work out the total number of goods in your shopping basket so as to optimize the cost of shipping and bring it to a minimum.

The Catch of the Day website is neat and easy to navigate, fast and convenient with secured ssl payments which guarantee online safety. Additionally, they are committed to delivering an exceptional customer experience and according to numerous reviews and what we’ve seen so far, they are doing a great job.

Catch of the Day website



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Admin on April 12th, 2012

AllDeals

AllDeals gets acquired by Dealzone

Breaking News: According to unconfirmed rumours the group buying aggregator website "Alldeals" has been acquired by the group buying aggregator "Dealzone". 

Movement in the group buying market: 2011 was a year filled with fluctuations for group buying in South Africa with the purchase of Twangoo by Groupon, the purchase of Ubuntudeal by "Bid or Buy" and the closing down of Zappon, Dealify, Dealio and a few other smaller daily deal websites. Since then the market seemed to calm down for a while untill now with the purchase of AllDeals just recently.

Alldeals was one of the first group buying aggregator websites in South Africa, starting up early in 2011 with a simple but effective website, and has since grown in size as more group buying websites sprung up.

Aggregator websites help consumers find the best deals available in a fast, free and convenient way by centralizing all the different deals in one place, thus making them easy to find and saving users from having to sign up to tens of different daily deal websites simultaneously. In 2011, there were approximately 7 aggregator websites in South Africa, but by the end of 2011/beginning of 2012, only 4 were actually running. Today there are about 8 aggregators in South-Africa , 3 of which are the biggest players leading the way, among them is "Dealafrica" which was established in the beginning of 2011 and is said to have become one of the most popular. 

The details of the transaction are still unknown and there has been no official comfirmation regarding the transaction from either of the sides. Nevertheless, it is hard not to notice the change in the footer on the AllDeals website which clearly states: "alldeals – Powered by Dealzone". It is unclear why the transaction itself (even withouth the details) was not publicly announced.

Enjoy group buying deals and daily deals? Get all the best group buying deals on Dealafrica - South Africa's most popular group buying website. 

Disclaimer: The above information is based on hear say and the footer on the alldeals website and has yet to be confirmed by either of the above mentioned parties. Additionally, Dealafrica is in no way related to alldeals or Dealzone 



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Admin on April 6th, 2012

VuvuPlaza

VuvuPlaza Logo

VuvuPlaza was launched in the middle of 2010 and is one of the many group buying South Africa websites that offer consumers discounted deals on various products and services.

The group buying or “daily deal” concept enables consumers to buy in a group and therefore benefit from incredible discounts on products and services which the merchants are more willing to give due to large numbers of purchases.

VuvuPlaza has partnered with the “Independent Newspapers” (which runs the STAR, Argus and Mercury) thus enabling them to offer their daily deals both offline as well as online – giving them the extra access to consumers.

Although being backed by a large media company is a huge benefit in the promoting of group buying websites, or any website for that matter, it has been argued that this alone may not be enough as the group buying market has already shown: Dealify was backed by “Naspers” and spent large amounts of advertising (mainly on T.V.) before closing shop and Zappon was backed by media giant “Avusa” but also closed down after less than a year of running.

Like many of the other group buying websites, Vuvu offers salon deals, spa deals, home improvement deals, restaurant deals, vacation packages, concert tickets, and recently added a section for Mobile deals – all which can be found in the following cities:

VuvuPlaza Johannesburg

VuvuPlaza Durban

VuvuPlaza Cape Town

VuvuPlaza Pretoria

VuvuaPlaza Bloemfontein

On their website, they state that: The Vuvu mission is about consumer choice, well-priced products, and good service. We pride ourselves on first-class service”.

Get great group buying deals like those offered on VuvuPlaza on Dealafrica

 



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Admin on April 4th, 2012

UbuntuDeal

UbuntuDeal was launched in 2010, and later acquired by "bidorbuy" – Africa's Largest ecommerce website, in 2011 and has since then seen massive growth due to its consistently high quality deals of up to 90% off! UbuntuDeal offers subscribers amazing discounts on products and services in their area, allowing them to experience all that their city has to offer, for less!

The UbuntuTeam is headed up by Jess Green. The quirky team keeps the deals rolling in and one only needs to look at HelloPeter to see their reputation for quality customer service.

UbuntuDeal

Where Do We Operate?

Ubuntu's head office is based in Cape Town but have an additional 8 satellite offices in 8 regions around South Africa and offer deals in all the following regions:

•   UbuntuDeal Cape Town

•   UbuntuDeal Johannesburg

•   UbuntuDeal Pretoria

•   UbuntuDeal Durban

•   UbuntuDeal East London

•   UbuntuDeal Bloemfontein

•   UbuntuDeal Garden Route

•   UbuntuDeal Port Elizabeth

Additionally, Ubuntu also offers national deals of course.

Why buy with Ubuntu?

By offering massive discounts from businesses all over South Africa, UbuntuDeal generates new, paying customers. An Ubuntu representative told Dealafrica that:

“Seeing how we only feature the best establishments in each city, a large percentage of the new customers we refer enjoy the experience so much that they go back for more, thus bringing the company lifetime value. We have a very high LSM subscriber base, all of whom have access to the Internet, banking facilities and are comfortable with shopping online – this is basically a dream market for any new business”.

What Type of Group Buying Deals are offered?

The UbuntuTeam negotiate great deals from the crème de la crème of businesses in each city in South Africa. From restaurant deals to rugby tickets, shows to spa deals, movie tickets to Mango flight vouchers.

A dedicated section for travel deals offers subscribers fantastic discounted getaway deals – both local and international, and the products category practically gives away those gadgets you've always wanted!

UbuntuDeal Website.

Find great group buying deals from UbuntuDeal on Dealafrica



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Admin on April 1st, 2012

Cityslicker

CitySlicker is a group buying website featuring exclusive restaurant deals, spa deals, sport events, holiday deals and various other lifestyle activities. 

CitySlicker

CitySlicker offers daily deals in all major South African cities and claims to be “one of the few group buying sites to actually treat both the customers and clients equally well.”

The website is headed by a group of successful daily deal professionals from Europe and South Africa and was officially launched in April 2011 in Cape Town shortly after the whole group buying scene began. Since then they have grown in size and popularity, expanding from their home town in CT to Johannesburg in October 2011 and then Pretoria in March 2012.

Recently, a Cityslicker representative told us:

“We know a good deal when we see it! A good deal not only pleases our members but also the local business featuring it! We guarantee to go the extra mile to provide our customers with daily deals that match their needs.”

According to various online media reports, Cityslicker received additional investments in the beginning of 2012 and has since launched numerous online campaigns, strengthening their presence and placing them as a permanent player in the group buying scene in South Africa.

Enjoy great group buying deals on Dealafrica including those from CitySlicker. 



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Admin on March 14th, 2012

Schweetdeal

Schweetdeal is an exciting new group buying site that launched in June 2011. The company is based in Pretoria and currently runs deals in the Gauteng area although will soon be expanding and offering deals in Cape Town and Durban.

The owner of Schweetdeal, Nico, says that he is often asked what their target market is and the answer to this question is not at all what people normally expect. Schweetdeal’s target market is not defined by age, gender or race. Rather “we aim to serve all the cool people out there by bringing them exciting idea’s, introducing them to new businesses or just offering great value on regular purchases”.

Nico continues to explain and states that:

 “although it might seem as if we are just in the business of offering deals  and discounts for products, our overall vision is much wider than this. We aim to create a community of open minded people, who are keen to explore the city in which they live and to solve the marketing problem for small businesses. In short, we believe that group buying is the new way to shop and it is just a matter of time before the other people catch on (if you are reading this you are obviously one of the front runners so tell your friends and family how schweet this kind of shopping can be!)”.

In keeping with this vision, Schweetdeal encourages all group buying customers and merchants to contact them with suggestions regarding products and services. Schweetdeal claims to always open to suggestions and to every email, seeing how they regard their customers and merchants with the utmost importance.

Schweetdeal also follows the “refer and earn” scheme, whereby you can earn R25 credit in your Schweetdeal account for every person you refer so long as that person purchases a deal (no time limit on his purchase, so don’t be surprised if a few months down the line you have a few hundred rand credit from all the people you referred).

Schweetdeal also holds competitions in which they give away tickets to concerts, music festivals and other cool prizes.

From our acquaintance with the guys at Schweetdeal, you can be sure that quality service is a definite thing! As Nico, likes to say: “stay cool and share the Schweetness!”



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Admin on March 14th, 2012

Free Coupons

Wikipedia defines “free coupons” as:  a document or ticket that one cand exchange for a discount when purchasing a specific product according to the terms written on the coupon.

Free Coupons

In the past, businesses would spend a lot of money on the printing and distribution of free coupons to potential customers.

Usually, free coupons are issued by merchants or retailers as part of their marketing efforts and sales promotions. In the past, free coupons were mainly distributed through newspapers and magazines, but today are being transferred over the internet and on cellular phones, directly by the merchants and business owners themselves.

Over the last decade, we have witnessed a slow but consistent decline in the use of the “classical” coupon/voucher. This is mainly due to the Internet which provides the perfect platform for new marketing tools. Once, business owners could only offer their discounts via newspapers and magazines which were owned by the big media companies. Today, each merchant has its’ own website and can offer discounts directly.

An additional reason for this decline is the coming of the group buying concept which began two years ago, in 2010 with Groupon. Since then, hundreds of group buying websites have popped up causing another major decline in the use of the classical free coupon. Just for general knowledge, more than 30 group buying websites in South Africa alone popped up shortly after groupon was launched and it is said that more than 500 group buying websites in total were launched worldwide.

The reason that the group buying concept has had such an impact on the coupon industry is due to the convenience and large discounts that the concept offers. The savings in group buying apply to a wide range of products and services, including spa deals, restaurant deals, holidays, gadgets and electronics and basically anything else that you can think of. In addition to the wide variety and sheer quantity of these deals, the group buying method also offers much higher discounts that were previously offered using the classic free coupons.

Free Coupons Today

Today, businesses that want to grow and increase their revenue by inviting more customers rarely turn to advertising coupons in the “old” media, such as newspapers, and prefer to advertise on group buying websites, or group buying aggregators, like “Dealafrica”, where the exposure to new customers is extremely large.

According to marketing researches in the US, the classical free coupons will still be around for at least another 10 years before they begin to fade away completely. This is due to older generations that still prefer to use the old version and due to some countries still not having a well developed Internet infrastructure.

According to these researches, America and Europe will be the first the stop using  free coupons with South America and Africa following. 

If you'r looking for Free Coupons or great deals try Dealafrica



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Admin on March 10th, 2012

YouDeal

YouDeal

YouDeal

One of the first Group Buying websites in South Africa, early in 2010. Today they are one of the leading and trusted online sources for discovering valuable local experiences – all at a great price.

YouDeal (YD) inspires its members to find, share, and enjoy the best of what their city hs to offer by connecting them with handpicked local businesses. 

With new and diverse offerings each day, YouDeal encourages its members to discover 
everything from shark cage diving to romantic weekends away at exclusive gourmet dinners and much more. 

YD offers various online payment options (including eft and credit card) using a third party service. YouDeal does not store its customer's credit card or bankind details thus providing them with a secured payment process. 

In addition to helping its users, YouDeal also helps local businesses grow by giving them access to their website and exposing them to high-quality new customers which in time will become the businesses regulars. 

They are based in Cape Town and operate across all major cities in South Africa.

With YD, there is no reason to ever pay full price again!

Click here to enjoy some great YouDeal deals.

YouDeal

 



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Admin on March 10th, 2012

Bargains

 

Finding Bargains Made Easy with Group Buying

There is absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to pay less and get more (or at least the same)! For as   long as people have been trading and selling goods and services, customers have been negotiating discounts   and better prices. Group Buying in South Africa now offers in-depth price comparisons and discounts offered by   various businesses every day, helping customers access unlimited savings on home appliances, gadgets,   holidays, restaurants and much more. In these trying economic times, customers are always on the lookout for a   good bargain which will reduce their monthly costs and save money. This includes bargains on essential items   but also on certain luxury products or services.

Groupon South Africa is one of the more known coupon providers that slashes prices drastically, although there are many other websites which provide these "daily deals". In total, there are about 25-30 group buying websites in South Africa (also known as daily deal websites), all offering great bargains on various types of products and services. In order to get all these great deals and discounts – all in one place – many consumers have began using group buying aggregators which show all the deals from the various websites in one place (for free). One of the biggest group buying aggregators and definately the most popular is "Dealafrica" which lists over 10 websites.

How much can I save if I hunt for these Bargains?

This relatively new method has saved consumers millions of Rands a year, and if utilized in the right way, can help you reduce your monthly expenses by hundreds of Rands a month (see our 10 tips for using group buying websites). Besides, there really is no reason why not to take advantage of these great bargain finding tools, especially seeing how they are free and are as easy as clicking a button. South Africans in particular want to counter the effects of the high cost of living and have started spending more time trying to find the best possible prices. Today’s consumers are more sophisticated and are very price aware which of course has also added to the group buying frenzy.

For some people, shopping around for bargains comes naturally and they will not miss an opportunity to ask for a large discount off the original price or only buy at places that have sales, but others are only now starting to understand the importance of this new group buying method and it’s advantages.

If you to are looking for bargains, then you should definitely try out group buying. To learn more, read our Group Buying South Africa article.

Had any experiences with group buying? Share them with us.

The article "bargains" is copyrighted by Dealafrica 2012



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Admin on March 8th, 2012

Daily Deals in South Africa

Daily Deals in South Africa

Daily deals in South Africa have been around for about two years, since 2010. It is said that they started with a website called Twangoo which was later acquired by Groupon and became "mycitydeal" or "groupon south africa". 

Other known names for the Daily Deals in South Africa concept include: "group buying", "social buying" and 'group deals", although some say that there is a difference between "group buying" and "daily deals": group buying being the act of getting a discounted deal because a large group of people bought the deal voucher, and daily deals being the offering of a certain product or service at a discount for a period of 24 hours – hence the word "daily". Regardless, most websites don't differentiate between this two terms and both will usually allow the deal being offered to be valid, even if only a small amount of people have purchased a voucher. 

There are hundreds of daily deals in South Africa and therefore the use of daily deal aggregators is usually advised. It is said that the biggest South African aggregator website is Dealafrica but due to the fact that the size of each websites subscriber database is kept confidential, this cannot be officially confirmed. 

Currently, there are about 25 websites offering daily deals in South Africa (click here for a list of daily deal websites in south africa). Since the "Groupon method" became popular, many sites have attempted to succeed in this field, ranging from small private entrepreneurs to big companies like Avusa, Naspers and MIH. On the other hand, many have shut down, among them Zappon (owned by Avusa media), Dealify (owned by Naspers), Justhenga, Dealio and many more. Due to the fast rate of websites opening and then closing, concerns have been raised as to the sustainability of daily deals in South Africa. On the other hand, there are many successful daily deal websites that have been running for over a year and a half now which seems time enough to assume their seriousness. 

It seems that only time will tell what the future holds for daily deals in south africa, especially seeing how this is a relatively new and dynamic field.

Read more about Daily Deals in South Africa.



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Admin on March 3rd, 2012

Group Buying Aggregators South Africa

 

Group Buying aggregators in South Africa help consumers find the best deals in town in a fast, free and convenient way. In 2011, there were approximately 6 aggregator websites in South Africa, but by the end of 2011, beginning of 2012 only 4 were actually running, 2 of them being the biggest players and leaving the rest to follow, one of them being Dealafrica (established in the beginning of 2011) which is also said to be the most popular. The Dealafrica website is easy to navigate and full of useful information to guide customers through the group buying process and assist business owners when advertising their services and products. Finding the deals that interest you, among the hundreds of daily deals available, is quick and easy on Dealafrica thanks to the numerous filtering options, which include search by deal category, area, price, keyword search and many other filtering options.

Many people use the group buying aggregators south africa in order to save time and money (by comparing deals and shopping online). Dominic P. of Johannesburg shared his experience with Dealafrica and had this to say: "I saved a lot of time and effort thanks to your website – thanks." Another great advantage of using an aggregator website like Dealafrica, is that you don’t have to worry about your inbox being filled with tens of emails with daily deals that you are not interested in from the different group buying sites South Africa. This is because Dealafrica offers you one daily email with all the best deals, based on your preferences. Lesedi B. of Durban appreciates this, saying: "Your website rocks! One email with all my preferences – should I say more…"  

Group buying in South Africa is a fast growing trend, where businesses seek to increase their client base and create brand loyalty by offering huge discounts and inviting large numbers of customers at a time, and therefore it is only natural that group buying aggregators South Africa have popped up. From a customer’s point of view, this is great because we get to save both time and money by utilizing their free services. From the people who want to open an aggregator website side, we say: this is definitely not a way to make a quick buck. It takes time, money and effort and you have to provide a high level of quality service.

If I had to choose, I would have to say that Dealafrica is the leading aggregator website in South Africa*.

Group buying aggregators south africa is part of a short review by Jerrard stewart from Online Media. 

group buying aggregators south africa is copyrighted (c) 2012



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Admin on February 29th, 2012

How to run a Groupon Campaign?

Looking to promote your business? Then you must have considered running a Groupon campaign. Business owners are always looking for new ways to promote their business, so when Groupon came along, and with it the whole group buying method, they were only happy to hop on the wagon. Since then a lot of water has passed under the bridge and merchants have learnt that there is no such thing as a free meal. In this post, we will not be discussing whether running a groupon campaign (or any other group buying website campaign) is good or not, but rather what is the best way to run it.

The bottom line is, just like everything else in life, there is a “good” and a “bad” side to running these campaigns, but if you do it right, it can do a lot for your business, if you do it wrong, then not only will you not make a penny, you might also lose a few. Business owners that are looking for new ways to expand their customer base and expose their businesses to a larger market have been turning to group buying websites like Groupon South Africa to offer discounts to eager customers. By giving group discounts, a business invites more customers and becomes more lucrative as more customers spend money enjoying group deals at their establishments. Group buying South Africa has become very popular and as a business owner, you must ensure, among other things, that your business is associated with websites that will offer maximum exposure.  

Here below are the Top Eleven Tips (we got bored of using "10" all the time) for Running a Groupon Campaign:

  1. Sharing of Profits: Before you enter into a contract with the group buying website, you must be absolutely clear on how profits will be split between your business and the website and when these will be paid.
  2.  Be Prepared: While running the campaign, and especially on the first day, you will receive large numbers of customers. They will be calling your business, looking at your website and visiting your store. In order to make the best of this, you have to be prepared. So, keep an appropriate number of trained and capable staff so that customers are serviced professionally and efficiently.
  3. Make the Most of Your Exposure: As mentioned in point 2, you should be getting a lot of customer traffic, so use this opportunity to get customer feedback, to offer them other services/products and to offer them a chance to join you membership club. Look for ways to enhance the shopping experience for customers and make your business more lucrative by offering add-on services that compliment your main offers. For instance, if you offer accommodation, try and include certain activities and means of entertainment that will entice your guests to spend more money at your establishment.
  4. Choosing the Right Group Buying Website (aspect 1): You need to decide whether you want to use the services of a big daily deal website, or a smaller one. Now some of you might be saying: “well this is obvious – the bigger one”, but hold your horses because each of these types of websites has their advantages and disadvantages. The smaller websites offer personal service and pay more attention to you. Also, you are able to negotiate better terms for yourself. The bigger websites on the other hand, offer less personal attention but much more exposure. Also, they are less likely to accept the terms you want.
  5. Choosing the Right Group Buying Wensite (aspect 2): Make sure that the group buying website that you are using is listed on one of the bigger daily deal aggregators, like Dealafrica, so that you know that they are getting a lot of exposure. This will in turn increase the exposure your deal will receive.
  6. Data Retention: Use your 'deal days' to create and maintain a database of customers that you can advertise bargains to in the future. Collect contact information, preferably e-mail addresses, so that you can steadily build loyalty by keeping customers updated on developments in your business.
  7. Limit the Amount of Coupons: We know that your main goal is to make a profit for you business and increase awareness, but be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. Make sure that the agreement clearly states the maximum number of coupons that you are willing to sell and that at this number the deal stops. It has happened many times before that salons or spas have sold too many coupons causing them to give bad service and thus lose both the new customers and the old ones. Think about it, how happy will your customer be if the only time he can schedule the massage is at 6:00am on a Sunday? If your shop can only fit 100 people at a time, it would be counter-productive to run a morning special and give out 1000 coupons.
  8. The “Fine Print” of the Deal: The terms and conditions that accompany each deal can determine the success of your 'daily deal'. Use this to your advantage and put limitations in place that will ensure profitability. Be careful not to limit the deal too much though, because then people won’t buy it.  A good example of this can be in the hours that the coupon is valid for. Select the time and day carefully. The idea is to create business during periods that are usually quiet and not productive. So if you own a restaurant and peek time at lunch is 12:00-14:00, make the coupon valid from 14:0 till 18:00 for example this filling the restaurant a second time round without causing an overflow of traffic during your  busy periods.
  9. Honesty and Quality: Think long term! Be honest and ethical in your dealings with the website of your choice and your customers. Some websites or customers might have the best ethics, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t and in the long run, both customers and the websites will want to do business with you again. Word on bad service spreads like wildfire and you must protect your business reputation by always providing good service.
  10. Contract Limitations: Most group buying websites will want you to sign some sort of agreement. This is fine as it protect both you and them so long as your conditions are also clearly stated. We already mentioned to pay attention to the sharing of profits clause, but you should also have a good look to see if there is any exclusivity clause which forces you not to run a similar deal on another website (usually for 6 months). If so, try get them down to at least 3 months…either way, you shouldn’t be wanting to run daily deals more often than every 2-3 months at most (as you too need to prepare for these and don’t want customers getting too used to them).
  11. Regular/Discounted Price: do not, and I repeat, do not raise your prices especially for the deal. Some merchants have been caught fictitiously raising their prices just so that the discount seems larger and when they got caught – it wasn’t pretty…

Have you already run a groupon campaign or any other group buying campaign? If so, share your experiences with us*.

* Although we believe that complaints are an important part of increasing customer awareness, and hopefully customer service, for legal reasons, we do not post "complaints".

"How to run a Groupon Campaign" is Copyrighted © 2012 By Dealafrica



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Admin on February 29th, 2012

It is very easy to get carried away when one comes across money-saving deals on group buying websites such as Groupon South Africa. Group buying gives consumers access to online coupons and group discounts that drastically reduce prices on purchases starting with meals at restaurants and lifestyle packages, such as spa treatments, all through to home appliances and gadgets. Some Groupon deals and the like may be good but not suitable for your needs – that is why it is recommended that users of this service consider a few things when taking advantage of group buying deals.

10 Tips for using Group buying websites:

  1. Trust your instincts – If a deal is too good to be true – it probably is. Always do a little research about the product, the supplier and check out the testimonials to get a feel of what to expect in terms of the service and overall buying experience.
  2. Avoid impulsive shopping – don't spend more that your budget. Remember, you are trying to save money.
  3. Get all the necessary information – most deals have terms and conditions in place.  Read them. If you are still not clear, call the product supplier and be aware of any limitations on the deal.
  4. Don't let your coupon expireGroup Buying deals expire after a certain time period so set a reminder for the expiration date to avoid losing out on discounts and wasting money on expired coupons.
  5. Buy at trusted and known group buying websites – there are many group buying websites in South-Africa. Some are new and some have been around for quite a while now. It is always wise to buy the coupon at a website that you know has been around for a while as this usually means that they have stood the test of time and will still be around in the future should you have any problems redeeming your coupon. Click here for a list of group buying websites in South Africa (The ones highlighted in blue are the recommended ones).
  6. Read customer reviews – spare a thought for what other customers have to say about the product as well as the supplier. Some deals sound good in theory but in practice, they can leave a lot to be desired.
  7. Make your dissatisfaction known - let the relevant people know if you have had unsavory dealings with a supplier or if the product is not what was advertised – but remember to be fair. Constructive complaints help improve service delivery.
  8. Use daily deal aggregators, like “Dealafrica”, to save time and to prevent getting hundreds of e-mails in your inbox – each group buying website you subscribe to will send you a daily email so eventually you will be getting tens of emails. To avoid this and to save time, you can easily sign up (free) to one of the aggregator websites, preferably one of the bigger ones, like "Dealafrica" that collects all the deals and centralizes them in one place.
  9. Take your time when making purchases – if you really need something, check for the best deal and do not be intimidated by the clock showing the time limit on certain deals. You can never really miss out on a good deal because there are so many of them!
  10. Two is better than one - share the deal information with your friends.  It is always more fun going with friends or family and maybe they have heard of a similar or better deal.

The bottom line is: there are some great Group Deals to be found out there, just remember to look before you leap.

Have any good tips or experience with group buying websites? Share them with us!

 



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Admin on February 23rd, 2012

Groupon South Africa

What is Groupon South Africa?

Groupon South Africa

 
Groupon, sometimes misspelled “Groupone”, and otherwise known as "collective buying", "social buying", "group buying", "social living",  "daily deals", "mycitydeal" or "group deals" is a method that presents products and services on the Internet at significantly reduced prices, often discounted as much as 30% to 90% off the original price. For the discounted offer to be valid, a minimum number of buyers must buy the product or service being offered in a limited time period before the offer expires. Groupon represents the idea that sellers are willing to offer their products and services at reduced prices if they can sell more and attain new customers as a result.  Groupon was launched in Chicagoin November 2008 as the "deal of the day" and remains at the forefront of the growing online deals industry.

How does Groupon South Africa Work?

Group Buying has its historical origins in China, where team buying or tuángòu as it was then known, operated to secure discounted prices from retailers for a pool of customers willing to purchase the same item in a minimum quantity.  In recent times, group buying websites feature a deal of the day, which is activated as soon as the required number of people agree to buy the product or service. Group buying websites negotiate deals with their local merchants and service providers and once the necessary conditions are met, buyers simply have to print the voucher and claim the discount at the retailer or online. Group buying offers competitive prices to individual buyers, guarantees the availability of scarce or obscure items and enables online shoppers to leverage the group buying model to prompt the sale of other consumer goods.

What is Groupon South Africa?

Up until January 2010, Groupon was mainly US based, but this quicly changed with Groupon launching a major acquisition campaign in aim of spreading into European markets ("City Deal" or "mycitydeal"),  South American markets (Clan Descuendo) Japanese markets ("Qpod.jp"), Russian markets ("Darberry.ru"), Groupon South Africa, of course,  and many more countries. This aggressive international expansion also led to South Africa through the acquisition of Twangoo in January 2011, which gave Groupon a South African presence. Today, Groupon South Africa is in almost every major city and each city offers it's local merchants a new marketing tool for their products and services. The Groupon South Africa cities include Groupon Johannesburg, Groupon Cape Town, Groupon Port Elizabeth, Groupon Pretoria and Groupon Durban.

 

What is the Groupon South Africa business model and how does Groupon make money

The way Groupon South Africa profits is very simple: for each coupon that is sold, they charge the merchant between 20%-50% of the deal being offered. Lets use an example: a restaurant wants to promote itself, so they approach Groupon (or Groupon South Africa approaches them) and offer to run a deal. The deal would be something like this: "Pay R100 and receive a full lunch meal at Dani's Pizza place in Sandton worth R200". The Customer would then pay R100 for the coupon, and get in exchange a meal worth R200 (so they would save 50%). The restaurant would get R50 and Groupon would get the remaining R50. So that's R50 per coupon. If Groupon then sells 200 coupons, for example, they would have made  R10,000 for that deal (before taxes and expenses of course). Groupon usually has tens of deals a day running ( a few deals for each city) and each deal runs a couple of days or until the coupons run out. You can do the math from here…

Groupon’s (U.S.) company value reached well over $16 billion on its first day of trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange, however in a market with hundreds of competitors, and limited entry barriers, many question the sustainability of the busines smodel. Living Social is one of Groupon’s most strategic competititors offering the same daily deals with funding from Amazon.

You can find great group buying deals like those beeing offered on Groupon South Africa here on Dealafrica



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Dealafrica is South-Africa's number one daily deal aggregator, bringing you all the best daily deals, one day deals and coupons from all the various social buying and group buying websites. If you want to buy more but pay less and enjoy all the best offers and discounts, then Dealafrica is the place for you!