Facebook social deals is different in approach. This article will tell you the difference between Facebook vs Groupon deals or other deal sites.
If you had an early glimpse of Facebook Deals which we wrote about, you should be surprised that the actual ‘Facebook Deals’ is indeed very different, at least, in its early stages, from Groupon, LivingSocial or any other daily deal/group buying deals.
In simple words, ‘Social‘ is written all over ‘Facebook Deals’, hence one should rather call it ‘Social Deals’. In its very early impressions, the core idea behind Facebook ‘Social Deals’ looks fairly impressive and very much in line with Facebook’s strategy of building all its features with Social DNA.
As we wrote in our post earlier, Facebook Social Deals will remain focussed on selling deals pertaining to events, concerts, movies, dinner and things that are generally done together in real world. In its early stages, Facebook simply wants to replicate the ‘Real World’ socializing through its own platform.
Facebook is teaming up with following companies at the launch of its ‘Deals’ in test phase.
- Gilt City
- Home Run
- FreshGuide
- PoweredByTippr
- KGB
- Plumdistrict
- Zozi
- OpenTable
- ReachLocal/DealOn
- Viagogo
- aDealio
Facebook vs Groupon Deals (Social vs Daily Deals)
With the kind of approach that Facebook seems to be taking, it appears that Groupon or any other Daily Deal site for that matter, will not face direct heat from Facebook, for sometime at least. There are several things that differentiate Facebook Deals from Groupon Deals or any typical Daily Deal site. Let’s have a look:
#1: Social element (Facebook vs Groupon Deals)
Facebook deals are meant to be bought along with friends. You would be far more tempted to buy a Facebook Deal along with your friend(s) than buying it just for yourself and what better place to share, buy, discuss or plan the deal before/after buying it than Facebook.
Groupon Deals don’t offer any social experience to ‘daily deals’. If you come across a good deal through email, you might just buy it. And there will be least chances that you will cause more real-life friends to buy same deal.
#2 Discount is not a necessity (Facebook vs Groupon Deals)
The usual convention is that you expect a heavy discount on Daily deals from Groupon/LivingSocial, generally 50%-90% but in case of Facebook Deals, the discounts won’t be necessary. One of the very first deals (that has already been sold out by now) under ‘Deals from Facebook ‘ came with no discount at all but its USP was a ‘unique experience'(VIP treatment), ‘exclusivity‘(only 100 tickets to grab) and being ‘socially alluring’ (more suitable with a friend).
#3 Merchants can put a cap on Deals (Facebook vs Groupon Deals)
One of the very first Facebook Deals from ACL Live came with a limited availability of 100 seats and it got sold out in couple of hours from the moment it got posted. That differentiates Facebook Deals from Groupon/LivingSocial Deals where merchants can’t impose a cap on number of sales through Daily Deals until time limit expires.
It’s just the beginning of Facebook Social Deals so many things are still imminent. We believe Facebook will eventually go into conventional deals and won’t remain confined to ‘Social deals’ but that will certainly take its own time, it seems. Or should we say, Groupon, LivingSocial and all other Daily deal/group buying sites can take a sigh of relief for a bit.
It wasn’t clear earlier but it seems more likely that there will be room for everyone in Daily deal/group buying business, provided Google doesn’t act as ‘Party pooper’ as it’s also preparing to launch its ‘Deals’ business under the name “Google Offers”.