daily deals

This morning I woke up to several emails: new girls in my area wanting to talk on Match.com, TopMan.com are having another sale & Groupon offers me 40% off a weekend spa break. All 3 went straight into the Trash.

I know from past experience the “girls in my area” are either people I know or live too far away. Anything in the TopMan sale is there for a reason - usually because even the cast of Skins wouldn’t be seen dead in it. And Groupon clearly doesn’t know me from Adam.

If you own a physical location for your business there’s a large number of options available to you to drum up new business; Groupon and Foursquare are two that spring to everybody’s mind. But I don’t think anyone should be recommending daily deals.

In my eyes Groupon shows that local deals work. But that’s all it does. They are experimenting with Groupon Local which will aid local businesses in generating new customers at low points of the day, but at the moment Groupon but it is still based on the daily deals model, with none of the “social” elements.

Always a fan of a tasty infographic and this morsel from Online MBA doesn't dissappoint, featuring a breakdown of the top-line numbers behind the daily deal giants: Groupon, LivingSocial and new entrants Facebook and Google. Amazon's announcement that it's entering the fray is too new to be included.

The figures put Groupon's eyewatering valuation in perspective: revenue of $100m, valuation of $6bn and plenty of red ink. Is there a touch of snake oil amongst the current offerings? Kevin Kelleher blogging at CNN Money seems to think so: