Daily deal sites have been around for a number of years now. The advertiser offers a huge discount – sometimes in excess of 50% – in an attempt to market a product or service and get you to come back for more. In effect, they are often not making any money (in some cases maybe running at a loss in the hope you will upgrade) but they are offering a product or service that they hope you will try again.
Restaurants are a great example of this. How on earth can you choose where to dine when there are hundreds of possibilities? Reviews are mixed and the internet often doesn’t help to narrow down your options! The restauranteur offers you the chance to dine with a massive 50% discount on a set menu in the hope that you will be delighted with the food and return many more times (paying full price) in the future, while recommending it to all your friends.
It’s a Bargain!
I have used sites such as Groupon for a few years now for various things – from meals to an experience day, to buying a memory foam mattress and matching pillows! The problem I find now is that there is a lot of junk to sift through. Many of the daily deal sites are rammed full of beauty treatments at a 95% discount – £100 instead of the £1000s that it previously cost – or strange products that you may never have heard of. Some deals also have very stringent terms and conditions attached – e.g. some restaurants have a policy where you can only dine on a weekday or that you must use before a given date.
Aside from trying numerous restaurants from the various deal sites over the past few years (and takeaways when I was at Uni), I have been pretty selective about what I order. IPL hair removal and skin therapies really don’t do it for me….
That said, there are still some bargains to be had as I found out recently!
STEAK and WINE
Who doesn’t love steak and wine? I was recently browsing a newer deal site run by Barclays (bespoke offers) and imagine my excitement when I came across a deal for steak and wine. Already being a member of a wine club, I already know that good deals are to be found, but getting a meat goody box delivered (not from the supermarket) was definitely something new to me!
The engineer inside me couldn’t help but wonder how the company were intending to keep the meats cold when they dropped them of on my doorstep, so can you imagine my amusement when I opened a massive polystyrene box full of dry ice! For those of you unfamiliar with dry ice, it is the name given to the solid form of carbon dioxide and can keep food very very cold. Cold enough to keep my box of steak frozen for a whole day while I was at work!
The Result:
After returning from Singapore last week, I had a very enjoyable weekend eating steak and drinking far too much wine. Chances are, I won’t re-order meat from the online butcher as they are pretty expensive, but the wine was a definite WIN. I think the lesson of this story is to keep looking on deal sites and not to forget that there are some hidden bargains still to be found. It only takes a minute or so to scan them each day and you might just be surprised!
If you are reading this post, you probably like a bargain just as much as I do! 🙂
I love these websites! There are lots of them now, but I mainly use Groupon and Living Social. Great for date ideas and new experiences! Also, like you, love the savings at restaurants because I do enjoy going out to eat, but hate that it costs so much!
Exactly!! Truth be told, I never return to half of the restaurants that I try, because I couldn’t justify paying full price – but now and again there is a hidden gem! 🙂
I got a few great deals on virgin wines but don’t like groupon and such, often it is a sub par offer that is sold to you for not that much of a discount but because it is a new bundle it is hard to compare to other full price offers.