I’ll admit to narrow mindedly walking right past the sale rack when shopping to avoid being overwhelmed by the clutter of last season trends and unorganized sizing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a great deal as much as the next person; however, the thought of sifting through countless racks of clothing to find a buried piece of fashion treasure is not appealing to me. Although many fashionistas find bargain hunting rewarding and exhilarating, for the rest of us, websites such as Groupon and Gilt Groupe offer us discounts minus clutter. Gilt Groupe, an exclusive website designed with the fashion addict in mind, offers up to 60% off of retail prices. Once you have been invited into the world of Gilt’s online discounted shopping, you are sent daily email alerts to their private sales thereby keeping you in touch with the website and feeding your fashion addiction. Other similar websites include Rue La La and Editor’s Closet, all are invite only and all are frequented by this fashion addict on a daily basis (I know, I’m obsessed with shopping!).
Groupon, although not a fashion based discount website, offers a variety of local deals on different products and services. Sites such as Groupon are structured in a way that a certain number of people must first purchase the deal in order to make the deal possible and worthwhile. The runway is set for social networking to play an integral role in the success of each deal as Groupon followers tweet and post links to featured deals in order for the deal to gain purchasers and popularity.
Consumers become marketers as sites like Groupon gain popularity and they are enticed to promote appealing deals with the promise that they will save money in the process. Today, Groupon boasts 70 million users and reaches over 500 markets proving that the company has endless resources and a plethora of consumers to use as social network marketers. In fact, banks are valuing the online-coupon company at as much as $25 billion! Although other companies may imitate their simple business plan, the fact of the matter is that Groupon will likely buy the smaller imitators out, thereby expanding their base further and achieving more success.
A month ago I had no idea Groupon existed, today, as posted deals flood my Facebook news feed, I frequent this site on a daily basis. Being thrifty is fashion forward and saving anywhere from 50% to 90% on products and services allows me to set more money aside for my shoe addiction. Any site that helps me save is trendy and Groupon is currently the trendiest.
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