1/3 Of All Daily Deals Sites Have Closed In 2011

Posted 09/19/2011 at 10:37am | by Brad Chacos

5

Comments

Print

Groupon’s success has been astronomical – at least if you agree with their accounting measures – but success always spawns imitators.  Ever since Groupon turned down a massive offer by Google to purchase the company, the daily deals scene has become crowded with poorly thought out Groupon rip-offs and “Me too!” competitors, along with some top-tier alternatives. So, there are plenty of companies vying to be the next Groupon. But are any of them having much success? New evidence suggests that a vast number of daily deals sites are going the way of the dodo, and doing it quickly.

The news comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, who cites numbers from a daily deal aggregator called Yipit.com. According to Yipit, 170 of 530 daily deals sites – or roughly 32 percent – have closed their doors in 2011. Major players like Facebook and Yelp have dramatically shuttered their operations, too. The numbers aren’t entirely surprising; back in June, a report by PriceGrabber showed that 52 percent of shoppers “expressed feeling overwhelmed by the number of bargain-boasting emails they receive on a daily basis.” In addition, 60 percent of those surveyed by PriceGrabber said that they thought the daily deals market was flat-out becoming too saturated. It seems like those feelings to discontent are starting to catch up to daily deals sites.