Tag: group buying

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Domain registrations hint at Groupon launching a premium paid service

Groupon Premium

Groupon recently announced Groupon Rewards, a loyalty program offered at no cost to merchants who want to reward repeat customers.

But now it appears the group buying giant might be launching a paid version of its deal-of-the-day services.

On October 17, Groupon registered fourteen domains (including typos) around the phrase “Groupon Premium” like GrouponPremium.net and GrouponPremium.org.

While this may be nothing more than defensive domain registrations by the daily deals site, it could also mean Groupon is planning to launch a premium paid service that provides either advanced service offerings for merchants or customers or possibly both.

With Groupon’s planned initial public offering now expected to be smaller in size, the company could be trying to improve its financials by providing a paid service.

Here’s a look at the full list of domain names registered yesterday through the brand protection company Corporation Service Company.

gouponpremium.com
groponpremium.com
grouonpremium.com
groupnpremium.com
grouponpemium.com
grouponpremium.biz
grouponpremium.net
grouponpremium.org
grouponprmium.com
grouponremium.com
groupopremium.com
gruponpremium.com
rouponpremium.com
wwwgrouponpremium.com

Groupon wasn’t able to land grouponpremium.com.  According to WHOIS records the name was registered on January 28, 2011, by Genie Ventures Ltd, a lead generation and internet marketing company.

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Reinvent’s Group buying site GoodNews.com heads to Edmonton

Good News Edmonton

Kevin Ham and his staff at Reinvent have been staying busy the last couple years developing their network of domain names into independent businesses through their lab.  But the last week has been even busier for Reinvent’s Kevin Ham, who is reported to have purchased ThreeWords.me, the viral web app created by Mark Bao. Now add to that the expansion of Reinvent’s group-buying site GoodNews.com into Edmonton (or #YEG on Twitter, which refers to the airport code for Edmonton International).  

In a message posted to Twitter, the company writes, “We’re super busy in the office today getting prepared for launching @GoodNews_EDM tomorrow!”.

GoodNews.com is a little different than other group buying sites.  The site’s motto has evolved over the past few months into, “Good Deals + Good Businesses + Good Causes = GoodNews.com”.

How does GoodNews do this? 

According to GoodNews.com, “To accomplish this, we’re working with local businesses to put together amazing deals, and then pairing every deal with a meaningful local cause. A portion of the proceeds from each deal purchased goes directly to the cause. Now it’s easy for all of us to donate and contribute to our local community.”

With group buying a hot business in 2011, the competition is fierce.  But GoodNews seems to be making a difference with its first expansion into another major city from Vancouver to Edmonton. 

Owning and operating Vancouver.com has helped GoodNews.com grow in its short time online within Canada.  Now with the site offering daily deals in Edmonton starting tomorrow, it looks to be competing with GroupOn and other major players in the group buying space.  Despite GroupOn having a huge footprint worldwide, one thing the group buying giant might not realize is that Reinvent has a network of over 600,000 category killing domain names at their disposal to market and advertise their business.

Vancouver and Edmonton are just the beginning 

If the number of Twitter and Facebook pages GoodNews has set up is any indication of the company’s plans for expansion, Canada is just the beginning. 

The company has both Twitter and Facebook pages set up for Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and several other cities within in Canada.  But other pages are also springing up in other countries like Sydney, Australia.

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Looks like ‘Daily Deals’ site for college students just bought uscoop.com for $7,000

uscoop

It looks like the privately held marketing business “U Scoop”, which offers students up to 70% off cool new brands and the best things to do, eat, and see in their college towns, has purchased the domain name uscoop.com for $7,000 USD at Sedo’s GreatDomains. 

Obviously, it’s just a guess since the domain name is still in Sedo’s transfer service, but if you visit U Scoop’s web site (theuscoop.com), the company which was founded in 2010 and has 6 employees (according to its LinkedIn profile), is planning to unveil its web site soon.

Maybe all the company was waiting for was the right domain name to launch their web site?

PokerStars

Of course, I could be wrong.  PokerStars.com owns the domain name uscoop.net, but the domain name doesn’t resolve.  Last week, PokerStars kicked off its USCOOP event (as in The United States Championship of Online Poker). 

However, PokerStars refers to the event officially as USA COOP, so my bet is still on U Scoop as the new owner of the name.

With the momentum of group buying in their favor, and college students always looking for bargains, targeting the niche college market seems like a really good idea.

I signed up for the U Scoop newsletter and just received an email.  Here’s what it said:

Each day our team scours campuses nationwide and surfs hundreds of websites to find the coolest products, fads, and services to keep you entertained.
 
But rather than just write about the daily finds, we give you a reason to try them by offering a 24 hour deal at up to 50% off.
 
And if that doesn’t do it for you, hopefully campus fads, pimped out dorm rooms, and pre-game playlists will do the trick.
 
In the mean time, we’ll keep lining up the deals while you start lining up your friends. Sound good?
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News

More group buying web sites, still more strange group buying domain names

Tuango

Group buying sites are launching everywhere.  Tuango, Montreal’s first group-buying site founded by Eduardo Mandri, is one of the latest entrants into the group buying market with a not-so-familiar name, but it’s not the only one using a catchy domain to brand its business – there are plenty. 

As more individuals and companies enter the group-buying business, there is a stronger likelihood the web sites will be using a catchy name over a premium generic name more relevant to its business model such as – daily bargains, or deal a day, or any number of the terms used to describe the group buying trend where people group together in order to get the best deals online.

I know I’ve covered this before, but not much has changed.  

Take for example an article published today in The Gazette entitled Group-buying making waves.  The story lists a number of new group buying startups in Canada, that at first glance seem sort of odd names for companies.  But  it’s not really that odd, considering the group buying market is crowded with all sorts of strange names.

Just take a look at some of the latest group buying startups mentioned in the news:

Coucoupon.com
Creation date: 19 Oct 2010

Grooster.com
Created on: 19 January 2010

Campusbargains.ca
Creation date:  5 November 2010

Suchthedeal.com
Creation date: 1 July 2010

Gaggleofchicks.com
Creation date: 8 April 2010

So why the change?

Are startups less worried about premium domain names and more focused on investing in different parts of their business? 

Are they cash-strapped? Do they even “get” domain names?

Or did Groupon change the domain market, at least for group buying sites with its use of “Groupon”? 

Whatever the reason, Groupon has done remarkably well since launching in 2008. 

According to Wikipedia: ‘ Groupon is experiencing phenomenal growth with a projected revenue of $500 million for 2010. No tech company (including Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, or even Google) has experienced this kind of growth. At just under 2-years old in April of 2010, the company was valued at $1.35 billion.’