Facebook recently released the details regarding a new coupons and deals segment of their enterprise. There will initially be five test markets including, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. However, this is not your everyday print and cut coupon site. Facebook plans to revolutionize this system by placing a different spin on discounts by focusing on deals that individuals would do with their friends.
New Discounts at Facebook
Therefore, Facebook is continuing their innovative ideas with a social spin. For instance, instead of displaying teeth whitening deals, Facebook will show discounts for activities like white water rafting, concerts and wine tasting events. These are all fun activities for a variety of people.
Using Current Facebook Technology
Interested users will be able to access these discounts through a Facebook button. Users will then be able to “like” and share offers to others in their network which will appear on their news feeds. Those interested in participating in one of the deals will be given the option to pay with a credit card, through the PayPal payment processing system or virtually using Facebook credits which can be used to acquire the voucher used to buy the offer.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Groupon currently boasts 70 million members and LivingSocial 28 million. Since Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide, they will have complete access to each member. Therefore, Facebook is in the position to significantly outgrow the two aforementioned sites. Additionally, the social networking website maintains a database of hundreds of partners and many local businesses with Facebook pages.
Ironically Groupon and LivingSocial both utilize Facebook pages as a form of advertising. Facebook has partnered with smaller daily deal websites like Plum District, Tippr and PopSugar City to feature brand-specific deals.
Bigger Discounts for Consumers
Adding Facebook to the mix of major discounting websites will certainly bring on fierce competition. Luckily the real winners from competing websites will be the consumers as they will become inundated with largest discounts and better deals than are currently available.
More competition always equates to more deals and lower prices for the consumer and discounting websites are no different. With the advertising power and sheer volume of users currently on the Facebook platform, it is inevitable they will be the victor. In turn, this may completely eliminate Groupon and LivingSocial or Facebook may attempt to acquire them.
1 Comment
“More competition always equates to more deals and lower prices for the consumer and discounting websites are no different”; So very well said…. With the increase in competition you always get a choice of better deals from all such advertising channels. And Facebook being alreafdy leading in this market recently, its something for other rivals such as Google etc to worry about. Facebook popularity and advertising concepts have considerably affected Google Adwords marketting.. A small business or common person prefer to advterise their product on Facebook instead of Google these days..