Yes, again, Daily deals.

From my last blog post about daily deals, the waves have been even stronger than before. Honestly, I love the deals. Why not? I myself have been a loyal customers of the daily deals site, purchased more than 30 deals and enjoyed at least half of them. Some of my friends are also deal lovers, and we can try new restaurants together & some activities. It's great!

There are constant debates on if daily deals are angels or evils for local businesses, the article I read from Nick Hughes (http://www.businessinsider.com/we-need-to-stop-killing-our-local-economy...) gave me the desire to write this post, because I don't agree with his points of how daily deals will kill the local businesses and they should die.

1. Daily deals provide a great advertising platform for SME
As a more effective substitute for yellow page and classified ad. on the local newspaper, daily deals attract more eye balls and targeted customers and bring in cash for small and medium businesses.

2. I don't think only crappy business use deals/discounts. Yes, some snobbish hi-end designer brands never give discounts, however, a lot of great brands do. Discount is one of the marketing tool to express gratitude to loyal customers and attract new customers.

3. Yes, many deal seekers maybe wont' become loyal customers to certain business, but some will do. maybe 20 percent will! As I used a voucher for facial, the ladies who treated me bought a very good machine using the deal money she collected in advance, the effect was real good and I became a regular customer for her. She told me there were many people turned into loyal customers from 1st time voucher users. And to attract loyal customers, the businesses need to provide great services and people will come back and people will recommend the services to their family or friends, generating positive word of mouth.

4. Daily deals provide more opportunities for normal people to try something new. Never thought about a photography lesson or a skydive? Now people would like to go out and have some fun. Also good for business. Why not?

Having said these, everything has pros and cons. If businesses are not honest, using deals to collect cash but not deliver is something we have to be alert. The daily deal industry should have code of conduct to regulate certain behavior and so on.

Embrace the daily deals, understand them, improve the industry and enjoy using them!