Groupon, LivingSocial Caught Inflating Deal Values

Ever wonderment how daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social undergo such huge discounts? It might be because the not-sale damage was inflated, qualification the dismiss count bigger by comparison.

Thumbtack.com looked into five deals on Groupon and quint deals on LivingSocial for local anaesthetic services, such as home cleaning, tutoring, portrait photography, and wedding planning. For each shell out, Drawing pin called the clientele under consideration and asked for its regular rate. In every illustrate on Groupon, and in three instances on LivingSocial, the quoted rate was lower than the regular price enrolled on those daily softwood sites.

So for example, Groupon recently publicised a $150 home cleaning service for $49 — a 67 percent discount. But when calling the merchandiser directly, the regularised quoted price was only $80.

The actual businesses, rather than the daily grapple sites, may be to blame. In the comments section at Business Insider, one concern owner admitted to inflating prices, arguing that it's the only way to make deals worthwhile. Other commenter, claiming to be a former Groupon sales rep, also said businesses tend to inflate their prices when reporting to the fellowship.

Brendan Lewis, a LivingSocial spokesman, aforesaid the company does not inflate prices, as stipulated in its contracts with topical anaestheti businesses. "If it happens, it happens, but it surely International Relations and Security Network't a practice of LivingSocial," helium said.

Now, keep in mind that Pushpin has a dog in that contend. The Website lists topical anesthetic services (like cleaning and tutoring) and allows users to request bids from service professionals. Time unit deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are a threat to Thumbtack's business, thus the company has every reason to salary a PR battle against them. Last calendar week, the companionship argued that its have bidding servicing is a better raft than Groupon and LivingSocial.

But IT doesn't hurt to take daily apportion sites' discounts with a grain of salt. Wear't use the difference between regular and sale price as the only indicator of whether a deal is hot. Do some search to figure of speech out what that service of process usually costs, or call the stage business. Park sense applies.

Of trend, some deals are more straightforward, look-alike buy one get one liberal, or $60 of trade for $30. In those cases, buy away. (See also "Online Bargains: How to Use Groupon and Its Competitors.")

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/477391/groupon_livingsocial_caught_inflating_deal_values.html

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