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A Rant About Groupon, Living Social, etc.

pjrose

pjrose

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
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My email is swamped with Groupons, Living Social, Dealery, Double-Take deals, Daily Deals, etc etc.

I am ranting about the amount of emails, the duplication of offers in multiple emails, the worthlessness of many offers, and the lack of proximity of offers that are "close by!"

I thought the original idea was one big deal a day...but I guess this has gotten too popular. Besides the amount of mail, there is so much duplication. It seems that some of the local sites "help" by listing all the other deal sites' deals in additional emails, so I read about the same photo albums, headphones, and online deals that really aren't deals multiple times a day, and then they're repeated again, day after day after day.

And honestly, is it worth the trouble to click, read, click again, enter credit card number, download, and print to save $2 (as on some recent movies) or $5 as with some gift certificates offered for restaurants - Wow! Get a $10 Gift Card for $5! (The following restrictions apply: not to be used Sunday through Saturday, valid only between the hours of blah blah blah,order total before taxes and tips and after any other discounts must be at least $50, etc etc etc)

Some that SEEM worth it - e.g. Pajamagram - definitely aren't. The PJs are nice but WAY overpriced, shipping is outrageous, and the coupon couldn't be used along with an of their frequent sales or free shipping offers. I still spent more than double what similarly cute PJs would have cost at Kohl's or TJ Maxx. If you buy a coupon for $xxx off something that isn't a fixed price - e.g. auto repairs, or painting, or framing - how on earth do you know you aren't being given an inflated price before they take off the coupon?

The quality of the offers has gone way down; lots of online junk, and if you click on the link to learn more, you can choose from another few hundred junky options.

I live in the middle of PA, sort of near Harrisburg, 2+ hours from Philadelphia. So why are most of my "Harrisburg" deals in Philadelphia? Some are in Delaware and New Jersey. And what's with the deals "near you" that are online?

Yeah, I know I could just un-sign up, however I've gotten some very nice Groupons / Living Socials for cooking classes, make-now-freeze-for-later meal making, and a few good local stores. That's the only reason I keep wading through the rest of it, and frequently hitting <delete>.

ok, rant over. Maybe.
 
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You must not like saving $$$. ;)

(There's always a price to pay for a discount. Just look at timeshare 'owners updates').
 
They stopped emailing me. I guess I wasn't buying enough. That's not to say I still don't get lots of junk mail--mostly for enlargement of an organ that I've never had. Oh, and hot women want me. Who knew?
 
Try this before ranting

Log in to groupon site. In upper right will see your name, click to open menu. Last item is e-mail subscriptions, link to turn them all off is at the bottom.
 
Rose Pink said:
They stopped emailing me. I guess I wasn't buying enough. That's not to say I still don't get lots of junk mail--mostly for enlargement of an organ that I've never had. Oh, and hot women want me. Who knew?
Click to expand...

:hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical:
 
I've had my email account for so long that I get so much junk I don't even try to keep up. I read about 1 out of 20 of my emails, and just ignore the rest. At work I use Outlook rules and that helps tremendously, but at home I don't even try. I am considering switching to gmail as I think their email system is much better than my current one.
 
Actually, I feel your pain...especially about the photo albums and headphones!! Same stuff here on the West coast. Just like you, I don't want to stop them altogether, as I've picked up some great deals here and there:

downtown hotel in Vancouver super cheap!
tickets to some events for half price
got some great Hawaii deals in Maui - restaurant/luau/ etc.
other hotel deals
fishing gear
club workout membership
inexpensive haircuts

Still, some of the other stuff gets old. It seems to me that living social is worse for non-useful "deals." I have most of them going to my secondary email, so that I don't have to look at it if I don't want to. That way it doesn't clutter up my main email...
 
Snapfish & Shutterfly Photo Books

If anyone receives a coupon or discount code for free photo books with either of these companies, please feel free to forward them on to me. I often use these photo services to create books documenting my travels. To pick them up (typically a $20-$30 value) for the cost of S/H, is a real deal and something I would use!

Thanks!
 
Timeshare Von said:
If anyone receives a coupon or discount code for free photo books with either of these companies, please feel free to forward them on to me. I often use these photo services to create books documenting my travels. To pick them up (typically a $20-$30 value) for the cost of S/H, is a real deal and something I would use!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'll try to remember that!
 
pjrose, I feel your pain, as it seems fewer and fewer of their offers are something that I want. Yesterday was doormats and headphones. I'm also irked by the restrictions on some. We bought a restaurant coupon without reading the details (shame on us) and it's restricted to Monday through Thursday and not valid for happy hours specials. So, it looks like we're eating after 7 on a weeknight sometime.

But, on the positive side -

Don't forget to sign up for Groupons and other coupon services before you travel. We signed up for Groupon, Cuponismo and Couponocity (sp?) before going to Puerto Vallarta. Groupon mostly had discounts off timeshare resorts, but the other two had some really good restaurant deals. One was for two shrimp dinners and a bottle of wine for $14!
 
I think that as important as signing up for the area's bargains before traveling is unsubscribing after you get back. And for those who shop for online bargains, keep an eye on your credit card statements. Some unscrupulous outfits will 'subscribe' you without your knowledge to things you have to 'opt-out' of to avoid ongoing monthly charges.

Jim
 
PJ, totally agree with you. I don't have the time to really read all the offers I currently get, I am just deleting without reading, not worth it. think I will unsubscribe from Groupon and Living Social which seem like mostly junk now. I'll keep Spreebird which has decent local offers still, plus Bloomspot and Blackboard Eats which have really good restaurant offers in LA.

H
 
the only site ive ever actually checked regularly for a while is charitybuzz
havent been checking it lately though

also checked ruelala regularly for a little while
 
I feel your pain.

It seems like the good deals come less frequently, and the junk deals are increasing. I definitely see a change since I first joined, and it is frustrating.

I feel like there should be an option "only send it to me if it is a REALLY good deal." LOL :)

I don't want to shut them off all together, but the amount of junk I have to sift through is annoying.
 
Keep your email that gets a lot of spam and use it for Craig's List rentals as that is a guaranteed spam attracter. Get a new email and do not use it for online deals, CL or other spam attracters. Funtime
 
"Unsubscribe" is your friend.
 
Rose Pink said:
They stopped emailing me. I guess I wasn't buying enough. That's not to say I still don't get lots of junk mail--mostly for enlargement of an organ that I've never had. Oh, and hot women want me. Who knew?
Click to expand...

Those emails were meant for me
 
I buy Groupon and LivingSocial deals quite a bit. It seems that they come in bunches...nothing good for weeks and then suddenly a bunch a deals that I like. I do use them for vacations as offerings of activities that are fun to do on vacation come up at significant savings. I have several right now that I am using on our trip to Dublin and London this summer.
 
I just talked about this with a friend a couple weeks ago. I bought a few deals before Christmas and found the companies charged higher prices and increased shipping fees, etc, when I used the groupon or living social deal. I ended up only saving about $5 more than if I had ordered directly from the company on the internet using the latest discount. Yes, I did save $5, but I also had to keep track of expiration dates, fine print, etc. It really wasn't worth it to me.
 
Timeshare Von said:
If anyone receives a coupon or discount code for free photo books with either of these companies, please feel free to forward them on to me. I often use these photo services to create books documenting my travels. To pick them up (typically a $20-$30 value) for the cost of S/H, is a real deal and something I would use!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have gotten a couple free books from doing reviews on tripadvisor.com. Have you reviewed anything there? They only give you a couple weeks before the codes expire, so it is good to have a book in the works for when the deals come up.
 
There are sites that gather and display ALL the deals together. You can check them yourself daily or subscribe to the email of one site (then unsubscribe to all the individual sites).

Here are some of ours, I'm sure you will have lots too :)

http://www.allthedeals.com.au/group-buying/perth

http://www.buyii.com.au/melbourne/

http://www.dealsguide.com.au/location/sydney/

http://www.dealcompactor.com/adelaide


EDIT: Looks like you have a Deal Compactor too. Just choose your location and use the filters to edit out the deals you don't wish to see.

http://www.dealcompactor.com/philadelphia
 
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pjrose said:
My email is swamped with Groupons, Living Social, Dealery, Double-Take deals, Daily Deals, etc etc.
Click to expand...

And of course, now there's Google offers. They had a good one yesterday with a $10 Starbucks coupon for $5.

What I would suggest is setting up a folder in email for offers, coupons or deals. Then, set up a filter to move emails from those various sources to the folder. You can them keep the emails together and review when you get bored or something. It may be more efficient than dealing with them among the emails that you really need to read or act on. If you find yourself not reading them withing a couple of days, delete what's a out of date. Just my thought.

Mike
 
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