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The discount coupon space is very hotly contested right now, particularly since rumours of Google buying the US-based Groupon for 6 Billion dollars. Amazingly the offer was turned down by Groupon, which clearly thinks this business has the potential to earn even more.
Dealush is differs from other services in that it focuses on users sharing deals and discounts spotted out there in the real world. Right now the site is only in private beta, so they are focusing on deals in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for now, but that will grow to include all of Australia. They aren’t restricting submissions to these locations, so if you find a blinder of a deal and just have to share it, feel free, wherever you are.
If your still living in your inbox, then Dealush can send a digest of all the deals in your area via email. If you’ve moved on from email, you can use social sites to keep track of deals.
- Follow Dealush on twitter –
http://twitter.com/dealush_bris
http://twitter.com/dealush_sydney
http://twitter.com/dealush_melb - Like Dealush on Facebook – http://facebook.com/dealush
You may wonder what would motivate users to spend the time sharing deals with others. Aside from people’s natural inclination to share these days, Dealush also offers prizes for contributors. There’s also the chance that you’ll one day benefit from a deal shared by others.
To ensure deals are legitimate, Dealush use a variety of methods to confirm, like following up with business itself and cross checking with other online services the business may have. Users of Dealush also have a reputation rating, which means if you suggest a deal, its verified and the community also confirm, chances are the next deal you recommend will also be legit. Dealush hopes that the community will eventually police itself. I hope they give promotion to the best deal submitters to keep them coming back.
The other side of the coin is that businesses wishing to promote deals can also use Dealush to do so. Given that discounts traditionally increases sales, yet still make profit, it’s in the best interest of the business to let as many people know about the reduction from RRP as possible. Using Dealush also gives businesses the ability to engage with the community and when questions are asked, even if they don’t have their own website.
It’s a lot to expect that anyone would spend the time to write down the specifics of a deal when out shopping, then submit them to Dealush later. To address this issue, Dealush will take advantage of smart phones, starting with an iPhone app (avail early Feb), that will let you enter deals on the go. As a shopper looking for deals around you, Dealush will use your GPS location to pull up deals in your immediate area. Android and Blackberry apps are also in development using the cross-publishing toolkit Rhodes. Personally I hope they also develop for Windows Phone 7 as well.
In terms of a business model Dealush is running with the popular freemium model, which delivers the basics for free, but would see retailers pay for enhanced functionality like..
- Include images with the listing
- Profile images
- Prioritised ranking on search results
- Featured listing in search results
- The ability to list multiple store locations
- Access to additional metrics / statistical information
I mentioned earlier about just how competitive this space is, so I asked Dealush what makes them different.
Our main points of difference with our competitors is that we concentrate sales that are in local, bricks and mortar stores (i.e. not online). We also differ from "one day deal" and "Voucher" type stores in that we target more traditional store sales. We also allow our users to perform searches and customise their sale notifications by specifying keywords to be notified about.
A question I’ll ask of any new service, is how do you integrate with Facebook? With nearly 600 million users, its clear they have won the account war. For services to integrate with Facebook just makes sense, rather than require users to signup for yet another unique account. Dealush will initially use Facebook connect to share deals with your Facebook friends. However there are plans for tighter integration with Facebook in the future. Get to work on this guys, Signup and sign-in has to be simple as possible.
I’d suggest Dealush also integrates with Facebook places and give users the opportunity to check-in to the place where they claim the deal. This would further share the deals with their Facebook friends and if they verify the deal is legit at the same time, increase their Dealush reputation.
You can try Dealush for yourself by using techau for the Private Beta Code on the signup page.
More @ Dealush.com
