who uses this?


just heard about it on NPR and it seems to be kind of a gamble depending on the size of the business and location

any success stories / cool stuff on there now?

This has been an AstralAdvent query

8/26/2010 8:36:09 PM

i use it like a mofo

there's some good deals there

heck they invited a bunch of us out to the brat house for free beer and food tasting tuesday for supporting them

8/26/2010 8:37:03 PM

Just launched here in Knoxville. Too early to tell on how much I'll use it.

8/26/2010 8:44:06 PM

in ATL i use it all the time

8/26/2010 8:44:32 PM

we use it all the time to go to the Bavarian Brathous in Cary.

8/26/2010 9:06:31 PM

It's legit, just limited, they had a $50 Gap coupon for $25 the other day and a $4 Fandango movie ticket

8/26/2010 9:24:22 PM

^Yep, I got the Gap Groupon. They also do a lot of salon specials. Last week they had super cheap NCSU football tickets.

8/26/2010 9:40:42 PM

i would have bought more than one of those gap coupons, but they had it on lockdown

so popular it broke the site!

8/26/2010 9:44:09 PM

I just signed up, and from what I've heard it's legit... today they had a crazy good deal on frames in Bham, but I don't need anything framed

8/26/2010 10:09:36 PM

Quote :

"i use it like a mofo there's some good deals there heck they invited a bunch of us out to the brat house for free beer and food tasting tuesday for supporting them "

Yep. That event was pretty badass...open bar on all those yummy German beers. Surprised I didn't spot ya there

8/26/2010 10:11:58 PM

yes groupon is big and has been gaining traction for awhile. there are some other sites that have copied the too. most of the raleigh groupons are for stuff i'd never use or impluse buy like hair cut / salon / weird restaurants / horseback lessons

they did have one for Crabtree Tavern awhile back which i had been wanting to check out, so i got in on it.

8/26/2010 10:27:26 PM

I don't really see how it's a gamble, if the groupon doesn't meet the minimum number of buyers (which I've never seen happen, not once......ever) you aren't charged

8/26/2010 10:27:33 PM

I made a thread about this a while back. Here's an interesting but old read.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/11/groupon-competitors-guide/

8/26/2010 10:30:00 PM

i use this and livingsocial

8/26/2010 10:30:43 PM

God, I have so many of these companies as clients.

Some to check out in Raleigh are:

Groupon, Living Social, Twongo, and Redeemio

Others in numerous locations include

Tippr, CrowdCut, Crowdsavings, Specialicious, Discount Forest (designed for college students), and many others. There are probably over 300 of them in the US alone.

8/26/2010 10:33:51 PM

Its big out here. i use it and get deals.

I also use: Buywithme.com, Livingsocial.com, Readersteals.com (san diego only)

8/27/2010 12:18:19 AM

<--------- Groupon, Twongo and Livingsocial freak

8/27/2010 12:28:32 AM

^^also check thedailysave.com it's another san diego one.

8/27/2010 12:50:15 AM

Quote :

"Last week they had super cheap NCSU football tickets."

wait what? they aren't giving them away yet? j/k

8/27/2010 1:25:46 AM

I definitely use groupon. I buy stuff on there for other cities too, when I know I'll be there within a year (or whenever the expiration date is). I've gotten some awesome deals on food and what not, and I'm waiting for a golf place near me to have a deal. Got close today- something for lessons, but it was in Tappan NY and I don't want to drive that far :-/

I get to use my Bada one this weekend

8/27/2010 9:52:51 AM

i signed up a few weeks ago but haven't seen anything interesting to me yet.

8/27/2010 10:02:45 AM

I've purchased a few things on there so far -- definitely some great deals from time to time.

IE: $15 for $35 gift certificate to Bavarian Brathaus in Cary (Usable for food an alcohol)

I highly recommend it.

8/27/2010 10:34:41 AM

My girl and I are always doing deals from here and http://livingsocial.com

One of the coolest we've done was the Walking Food Tour of Durham through Taste of Carolina.

http://www.tastecarolina.net/files/tours.php

The Beer, Bourbon, Barbecue Fest deal was pretty fantastic too

8/27/2010 10:35:53 AM

Quote :

"st week they had super cheap NCSU football tickets." wait what? they aren't giving them away yet? j/k"

some people who didn't renew season tickets got sent free WCU tickets in the mail last week.

8/27/2010 11:08:15 AM

my sister introduced me to it last year, i use it occasionally. The deals are really good, but there's a lot of salon type stuff that doesn't necessarily appeal to me.

got in on the Gap one last week.

8/27/2010 11:45:23 AM

The shitty thing is that the business doesn't get the $25 you spend on the $50 certificate. The groupon people get it for the service they provide.

That means business have to put up $50 worth of value, and that's why they split up the $50 into 2 or more coupons that say "Buy $35 worth of stuff, get $25 off"or "Buy $15 worth of stuff, get $10 off".


Yes, it brings in new customers, but at the same time, the business isn't making any money off it. They are actually losing money off it off the false hope that new customers will spend money there in the future.

[Edited on August 27, 2010 at 12:42 PM. Reason : ..]

8/27/2010 12:40:30 PM

^true, but i would think most businesses look at it as an advertising expense. for each person that buys a $20 coupon (for instance), that person spent ~$10, $6 of which goes to the business. so, that's a "loss" of $14 per person. Now, for a lot of places, a $20 retail item costs that business around $10-$12. So, really for each person that bought a coupon, it's a real loss of ~$5. The good part is that it only costs you for people that buy a coupon, plus hundreds more see your deal for the day. It's a pretty cost-effective way to market as opposed to print or radio where people can more easily ignore your ad.

8/27/2010 12:48:27 PM

I bought a tandem kayak tour for more than 1/2 off.
I bought 2 snorkeling tours for more than 1/2 off
Movie tickets for 1/2 off
and then a $140 worth gift certificate for $30 at a student salon place. So that means i can get like 4 massages, or a bunch of other services.

All from these sites.

8/27/2010 12:52:08 PM

Quote :

"I buy stuff on there for other cities too, when I know I'll be there within a year (or whenever the expiration date is)."

awesome idea. I just signed up for san diego, since i'll be going out there in october.

[Edited on August 27, 2010 at 12:57 PM. Reason : durrr]

8/27/2010 12:57:24 PM

Any suggestions on how to remind myself to check thiis site daily. I have this and a couple similar sites like woot bookmarked but I find the sites with rss feeds easier to keep up with, though those have multiple listings per day and usually last longer than 1 day.

I'm astraladvent and I approved this message.

9/1/2010 9:45:26 PM

there are dozens of tools that will turn any site into an RSS feed.

[Edited on September 1, 2010 at 10:11 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2010 10:11:24 PM

^^ i just get the emails from them. pretty painless

9/1/2010 10:17:38 PM

^^ i just get the emails from them. pretty painless

9/1/2010 10:17:38 PM

go to DealRadar. It's a deal aggregation site, so it takes all of the deals in your area and sends them to you in one email. really sweet.

9/1/2010 11:59:10 PM

Quote :

"Any suggestions on how to remind myself to check thiis site daily. I have this and a couple similar sites like woot bookmarked but I find the sites with rss feeds easier to keep up with, though those have multiple listings per day and usually last longer than 1 day. "

I hate unnecessary daily emails, so I just keep them in my bookmarks bar under Deals. When I want to look at them, I click with the middle mouse button and open them all in tabs. It works for me.

9/2/2010 9:45:27 AM

i just started following this in Chicago, but have yet to purchase anything. I mean, the deals seem good (today is $10 worth of cupcakes for $5), but at the same time I don't really need most of this stuff so I feel like I would just end up spending money because I feel like I am 'saving', when in reality I'm just doing more spending.

9/2/2010 12:20:49 PM

Bada!!!


BINGS PIZZA!?!?!


Wtf groupon, you tease

9/13/2010 7:36:34 AM

Today's Deal: $6 for $16 Worth of New York–Style Pizza at Bada Bing Pizza

9/13/2010 9:37:51 AM

I love this site!

I already bought a Christmas present for my mom on there this year. Two hour long mani/pedi for $20.

A few months ago, I got the wine deal of $25 for $75 worth of wine from a wine distributors website.

The ones I still have to use are:

Blinko's - $10 for $20 worth of food/drinks
Design Gallery Salon - $15 for $40 worth of services
401 Par Golf - $7 each for two games

I also use LivingSocial but I have only bought one thing off there.
$20 for 20 Bikram Yoga classes (which is pretty awesome)

[Edited on September 13, 2010 at 10:00 AM. Reason : ack]

9/13/2010 9:59:04 AM

good stuff

9/13/2010 2:40:36 PM

Today's Groupon is Wolfpack mens basketball tickets for $15/2 tickets (choose from 2 games)

or

$80/2 season tickets to Wolfpack womens basketball

http://www.groupon.com/raleigh-durham/

11/9/2010 8:55:30 AM

i picked up the $45 ($100 value, supposedly) bicycle chain tune-up deal a couple of weeks ago...took in the bikes last week and had them tuned and cleaned

talked to the owner of the franchise (john, i think) and he said that they only needed 90 coupons to break even and they sold something like 550...said it's one of the best things they've done and i was very happy with the value

11/9/2010 9:01:06 AM

^ I'll have to tell my boss that. I've been trying to convince him for awhile that Groupon could help out his business some.

11/9/2010 9:51:59 AM

yeah, i try to give feedback whenever i can...it was just chance that the owner was there when i picked up the bikes

i certainly wouldn't have paid $100/bike for a tune-up (heck, that's what i got my bike for off CL )...but $45 got me in there and who knows, it might be a reason i go back

11/9/2010 10:24:45 AM

message_topic.aspx?topic=603598

Maybe I'll use it when I go into Raleigh.

11/9/2010 10:30:53 AM

this one is pretty good:

http://www.groupon.com/raleigh-durham/deals/junk-patrol

$70 for $150 of junk removal

11/17/2010 1:28:40 PM

just got the 14 dollar buck subscription to Our State

11/17/2010 1:44:15 PM

^ where was that one? Didnt see it on groupon

11/17/2010 1:48:08 PM

http://www.groupon.com/deals/our-state-magazine-raleigh-durham?c=dnb&p=1

11/17/2010 2:48:46 PM

^^^ you would...

Quote :

" Our State infuses hearts and homes with a healthy dose of Tar Heel pride."

11/17/2010 2:52:26 PM