According to some insider information about LivingSocial, after its recent acquisition of SocialMedia, it is valued in the neighborhood of $2.9 billion. Its projected 2011 revenues will be very close to $1 billion. This really is not an insider tip, the numbers have been available for...
It does not kill an iPad, rather it’s an iPad app that can kill the competitors’ iPad apps. This Microsoft innovation is considered by many as more impressive than the Bing’s iPhone app. This iPad works wonders and it’s optimized with the tablet. In comparison to...
[caption id="attachment_389" align="alignleft" width="170" caption="Where did it all go?"][/caption] With an anticipated loss of $165M, the once formidable MySpace is now set fall into oblivion. Mismanaged and involved in unwise business deals coupled with indulgence in ego-centric extravagance and whims instead of having the discipline and...
YouTube returned to its October viewership level after a 4-month pattern of decline in the number of unique viewers and video viewing sessions, according to the latest figures released from comScore, a leading company specializing in digital business analytics. Googlesites' March performance is comparable to...
Google maps now offers driving directions with transportation options that instantaneously show up with the results. This is especially applicable for places that are covered by public transit and is suggested when this is a beneficial choice to consider. The information is also supposed to...
Just a few years ago, it was quite hard to find a site that put together almost all the coupons available out there. Since then, there have been dozens of companies, sites and apps that have sprung up, all of them vying to be the...
Samsung, as one of the recognizable brands in mobile devices and appliances, should know by now that the success or failure of their products depends on user experience. It's quite disappointing to know that they have tried to mislead people into believing that testimonials from the...
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A recent deal from DealFind put up by The Butchers on Yonge Street in Toronto seems to have set the bar for how quickly things can go bad for a seemingly great daily deal offer. According to a Group Buying Data presentation of Yipit, a deal aggregator site, the Canadian company offered a 69% discount on all meat orders, which generated 11,000 orders and over $600,000 in revenue. As good as the deal sounds, it was quite clear that it didn’t go over too well with some customers.
Here’s a representative sample of what amounted to 8 full pages of consumer rage on YPG’s deal site, RedFlagDeals:
'I don’t care what makes sense to you. What makes sense is that you are deceiving and misleading people. I was re-assured that the problem was resolved by DealFind so that is why I went in again. Don’t blame me for exercising my consumer rights. I have requested and received a full refund from Dealfind. There will be articles in the media about this thanks to me. These coupon sites are doing a disservice to people and praying on our desires to get good deals during these economic times'.
'The Butchers are doing something dodgy and shady here. We might not have proof, but by offering so many deals on so many sites and by being deceptive on their prices and what people can use the coupon for translates to disgusting. They will hopefully learn their lesson. It might end up costing people their jobs though and that is sad'.
'FYI you better check your emailed order cos they substituted strip loin for my ordered ribeye and DIDNT EVEN TELL ME!!!! plus ZERO marbling, which shouldn’t really be graded AA or higher which is what they are purportedly selling'.
There’s no real way to ascertain the veracity of these claims; however, justified or not, the public nature of such complaints means that lasting damage is done either way. Even as online deals represent a huge opportunity for small businesses to reach a wider customer base, poorly planned, executed, or received promotions such as these can cost an enterprise a lot of bad PR.
Here are some highlights from James Moran's interesting talk at ILM East. It started with a few of Bobbi Loy-Luster's Deal-a-Day predictions: Sales volume will increase, but this will be matched by a slowing growth rate. Over $873M was generated in daily deal revenues, and from...
[caption id="attachment_389" align="alignleft" width="230" caption="A headache from a misleading ad?"][/caption] A company has to pay $250,000 for misleading their customers through fake reviews of their product. Legacy Learning Systems Inc., owned by Lester Gabriel Smith is the distributor of the Learn and Master Guitar, a home learning...